Page:Keeping the Peace.pdf/61

 said, "but I'm not really up to waiting on them. Sarah will help mother."

"Won't you please lie down?" said Armitage.

"Must I?"

It was wonderful that she should leave the decision to him.

"Please!"

So she left the piano and lay down on the long chair with the cushions. "I know," she said, "that it's fashionable to have aches and pains, but this is my first and I don't quite know how to manage it."

"You know how to manage so that it doesn't spoil anybody else's fun. I think you're perfectly wonderful about it."

"I'm not," she said simply, and then:

"Edward will be disappointed if we don't have a piece of his cake."

"Like some ice cream too?"

"Just a spoonful."

Armitage smiled upon her and hurried to the dining room. He returned after a short interval with two helpings of ice cream and two slices of the birthday cake.

"Don't swallow recklessly," smiled Ruth. "There's a thimble somewhere in this cake, a ten cent piece, and a ring."