Page:A Little Country Girl - Coolidge (1887).djvu/106

 dismay, as Candace in answer to each question shook her head.

"Cake—on my birthday, you mean? No, I don't think I ever did. Aunt Myra doesn't believe in cake. She says she liked it when she was young; but since she was converted to cracked wheat and oatmeal at the age of thirty-three, she has hardly ever touched it. We never had any at North Tolland, except gingerbread sometimes."

"What a dreadful kind of aunt for a girl to have!" remarked Marian, meditatively. She sat for some time longer on the floor, with her head on Candace's knee; but she seemed to be thinking deeply about something, and said she didn't feel like being read to any longer. At last she went away "to speak to mamma," she said.

Candace had forgotten all about this birthday discussion before Saturday morning dawned dimly out of the still persistent fog. All the time she was dressing, her eyes were on "The Golden Legend" which lay open on the bureau beside her; and her thoughts were