Grace Margaret looked startled.
"We haven't got any tin plate," she objected.
"Rover has."
Grace Margaret's eyes dropped suddenly, then rose and met her sister's.
An unwilling admiration crept into them.
"How will Maudie learn nice table manners?" she protested, feebly.
"Mamma says she must, you know."
"Folks don't have nice table manners when they're livin' simple lives," announced Helen Adeline, loftily. "They just eat. I guess we won't give her knives an' forks an' spoons, either."
Grace Margaret battled with temptation and weakly succumbed.
"Let's give her some of the rice pudding, though," she suggested. "It will be such fun to see her eat it, 'specially if it's very creamy!"
Of further details of that luncheon all three children thereafter declined to speak. To Genevieve Maud the only point worthy of mention was that she had what the others had. This compromise effected, the manner of eating it was to her a detail of indescribable unimportance. What were knives, forks, spoons, or their lack, to Genevieve Maud? The tin plate was merely a gratifying novelty, and that she had been in close communion with rice pudding was eloquently testified by the samples of that delicacy which clung affectionately to her features and her fat person during the afternoon.
While they ate, Helen Adeline's active mind had been busy. She generously gave her sisters the benefit of its working without delay.