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With an impulse quite surprising even to herself Flame thrust both hands into the Lay Reader’s clasp.

“You are nice, aren’t you?” she quickened. In an instant of weakness one hand crept up to the blinding bandage, and recovered its honor as instantly. “Oh, I do wish I could see you,” sighed Flame. “You’re so good-looking! Even Mother thinks you’re so good-looking!… Though she does get awfully worked up, of course, about your ‘amorous eyes’!”

“Does your Mother think I’ve got … ‘amorous eyes’?” asked the Lay Reader a bit tersely. Behind his spectacles as he spoke the orbs in question softened and glowed like some rare exotic bloom under glass. “Does your Mother … think I’ve got amorous eyes?”

“Oh, yes!” said Flame.

“And your Father?” drawled the Lay Reader.

“Why, Father says of course you’ve got ‘amorous eyes’!” confided Flame with the faintest possible tinge of surprise at even being asked such a question. “That’s the funny thing about Mother and Father,” chuckled Flame. “They’re always saying the same thing and meaning something entirely different by it. Why, when Mother says with her mouth all pursed up, ‘I have every reason to believe that Mr. Lorello is engaged to the daughter of the Rector in his former Parish,’ Father just puts back his head and howls, and says, ‘Why, of course, Mr. Lorello is engaged to the daughter of the Rector in his former Parish! All Lay Readers….”

In the sudden hush that ensued a faint sense of uneasiness flickered through Flame’s shoulders.

“Is it you that have hushed? Or the dogs?” she asked.

“The dogs,” said the Lay Reader.

Very cautiously, absolutely honorably, Flame turned her back to the Lay Reader, and lifted the bandage just far enough to prove the Lay Reader’s assertion.

Bulging with mush the four dogs lay at rest on rounding sides with limp legs straggling, or crouched like lions’ heads on paws, with limpid eyes blinking above yawny mouths.

“O–h,” crooned Flame. “How sweet! Only, of course, with what’s to follow,” she regretted thriftily, “it’s an awful waste of mush…. Excelsior warmed in the oven would have served just as well.”

At the threat of a shadow across her eyeball she jerked the bandage back into place.

“Now, Mr. Lorello,” she suggested blithely, “if you’ll get the Bibles….”

“Bibles?” stiffened the Lay Reader. “Bibles? Why, really, Miss Flame, I couldn’t countenance any sort of mock service! Even just for–for quaintness,–even for Christmas quaintness!”

“Mock service?” puzzled Flame. “Bibles?… Oh, I don’t want you to preach out of ’em,” she hastened perfectly amiably to explain. “All I want them for is to plump-up the chairs…. The seats you see are too low for the dogs…. Oh, I suppose dictionaries would do,” she compromised reluctantly. “Only dictionaries are always so scarce.”

Obediently the Lay Reader raked the parlor book-cases for “plump-upable” books. With real dexterity he built Chemistries on Sermons and Ancient Poems on Cook Books till the desired heights were reached.

For a single minute more Flame took another peep at the table.

“Set a chair for yourself directly opposite me!” she ordered. For sheer hilarious satisfaction her feet began to dance and her hands to clap. “And whenever I really feel obliged to look,” she sparkled, “you’ll just have to leave the table, that’s all!… And now…?” Appraisingly her muffled eye swept the shining vista. “Perfect!” she triumphed. “Perfect!” Then quite abruptly the eager mouth wilted. “Why … Why I’ve forgotten the carving knife and fork!” she cried out in real distress. “Oh, how stupid of me!” Arduously, but without avail, she searched through all the drawers and cupboards of the Rattle-Pane kitchen. A single alternative occurred to her. “You’ll have to go over to my house and get them,–Mr. Lorello!” she said. “Were you ever in my kitchen? Or my pantry?”

“No,” admitted the Lay Reader.

“Well, you’ll have to climb in through the window–someway,” worried Flame. “I’ve mislaid my key somewhere here among all these dishes and boxes. And the pantry,” she explained very explicitly, “is the third door on the right as you enter…. You’ll see a chest of drawers. Open the second of ’em…. Or maybe you’d better look through all of them…. Only please … please hurry!” Imploringly the little head lifted.