A step was heard in the hall. Winnie stepped forward and began to speak rapidly; the rest of us looked down shamefacedly.
"Miss Prillwitz, please forgive us; we were so hungry we could not stand it. If you knew what a dreadful breakfast we had this morning, I'm sure you would not blame us—"
But she was interrupted by a cry of dismay—"Oh! have you eaten them all? I bought them for Aunty."
Looking up, we saw a manly little boy with an expression of distress on his frank features.
Adelaide uttered a sharp exclamation. I thought she said, "It's him!" and yet Adelaide seldom forgot her grammar. Winnie drew a deep breath, and caught Adelaide by the arm. The boy looked up from the empty platter to the girls' faces, and his expression changed. "Oh! it's you," he said. "Well, no matter, only I meant 'em for a present for her—Miss Prillwitz, you know. She's no end good to me. Mrs. Hetterman, down at Rickett's Court, makes 'em for regular customers every Friday morning. They are prime, and mother gave me a quarter for pocket-money this month, so I got ten cents' worth for Aunty; she lets me call her so. I thought she'd like 'em, and it would patronize Mrs. Hetterman, and show her I hadn't forgotten old friends, if I had moved up in the world."
"Here's ten cents to get some more from Mrs. Hetterman," said Adelaide, "and maybe we can get her a wholesale order to furnish our boarding-school. I'll speak to Madame about it this very day."
"And if Madame doesn't order them, we girls will club together and have a spread of our own," said Winnie.
Miss Prillwitz came in at this juncture, and explanations followed.
"If Madame is in such trouble in regards of a cook," said Miss Prillwitz, "I vill write her of Mrs. Hetterman, and perhaps it will be to them both a providence. Can she make ozzer sings as ze croquettes of codfish?"
"Oh yes, indeed," the little prince spoke up, eagerly; "soup, and turnovers, and such bread! She gave me a little loaf every baking while mother had the pneumonia. Mr. Dooley, the butcher, gave me a marrow bone every Monday, and I always took it to Mrs. Hetterman to make into soup. It made mother sick to boil it in our little room, and Mrs. Hetterman would make a kettle of stock, and showed me how to keep it in a crock outside the window, so mother could have some every day; it was what kept mother's strength up through it all. We had such good neighbors at the court! but Mrs. Hetterman was best of all. She has five children of her own, too. Bill is a messenger boy, and Jennie works in a feather factory. Mary is a cripple, but she is just lovely, and tidies the house, and takes care of the two little ones. Mr. Hetterman was a plasterer and got good wages, but he fell from a scaffolding and broke his leg, and he's at the hospital."