Felicity was cumbered with many cares the next morning. For one thing, the whole house must be put in apple pie order; and for another, an elaborate supper must be prepared for the expected return of the travellers that night. Felicity her whole attention to this, and left the secondary preparation of the regular meals to Cecily and the Story Girl. It was agreed that the latter was to make a cornmeal pudding for dinner.  
In spite of her disaster with the bread, the Story Girl had been taking cooking lessons from Felicity all the week, and getting on tolerably well, although, mindful of her former mistake, she never ventured on anything without Felicity's approval. But Felicity had no time to her this morning.
 
"You must attend to the pudding yourself," she said. "The recipe's so plain and simple even you can't go astray, and if there's anything you don't understand you can ask me. But don't bother me if you can help it."
 
The Story Girl did not bother her once. The pudding was and baked, as the Story Girl proudly informed us when we came to the dinner-table, all on her own hook. She was very proud of it; and certainly as far as appearance went it her triumph. The slices were smooth and golden; and, in the sugar sauce which Cecily had compounded, were very fair to view. Nevertheless, although none of us, not even Uncle Roger or Felicity, said a word at the time, for fear of hurting the Story Girl's feelings, the pudding did not taste exactly as it should. It was tough—decidedly tough—and lacked the richness of flavour which was customary in Aunt Janet's cornmeal puddings. If it had not been for the abundant supply of sauce it would have been very dry eating indeed. Eaten it was, however, to the last . If it were not just what a cornmeal pudding might be, the rest of the bill of fare had been extra good and our appetites matched it.
 
"I wish I was twins so's I could eat more," said Dan, when he simply had to stop.
 
"What good would being twins do you?" asked Peter. "People who can't eat any more than people who don't squint, can they?"
 
We could not see any connection between Peter's two questions.
 
"What has got to do with twins?" asked Dan.
 
"Why, twins are just people that squint, aren't they?" said
Peter.
We thought he was trying to be funny, until we found out that he was quite in earnest. Then we laughed until Peter got sulky.
 
"I don't care," he said. "How's a fellow to know? Tommy and Adam Cowan, over at Markdale, are twins; and they're both cross-eyed. So I s'posed that was what being twins meant. It's all very fine for you fellows to laugh. I never went to school half as much as you did; and you was brought up in Toronto, too. If you'd worked out ever since you was seven, and just got to school in the winter, there'd be lots of things you wouldn't know, either."
 
"Never mind, Peter," said Cecily. "You know lots of things they don't."
 
But Peter was not to be conciliated, and took himself off in high dudgeon. To be laughed at before Felicity—to be laughed at BY Felicity—was something he could not endure. Let Cecily and the Story Girl cackle all they wanted to, and let those stuck-up Toronto boys grin like chessy-cats; but when Felicity laughed at him the iron entered into Peter's soul.
 
If the Story Girl laughed at Peter the mills of the gods ground out his revenge for him in mid-afternoon. Felicity, having used up all the available cooking materials in the house, had to stop perforce; and she now to stuff two new pincushions she had been making for her room. We heard her in the pantry as we sat on the cool, spruce-shadowed cellar door outside, where Uncle Roger was showing us how to make elderberry pop-guns. Presently she came out, frowning.
 
"Cecily, do you know where mother put the sawdust she emptied out of that old beaded pincushion of Grandmother King's, after she had the needles out of it? I thought it was in the tin box."
 
"So it is," said Cecily.
 
"It isn't. There isn't a of sawdust in that box."
 
The Story Girl's face wore a quite indescribable expression, compound of horror and shame. She need not have confessed. If she had but held her tongue the mystery of the sawdust............