“Glad you think so,” responded Edith, with an air of deep melancholy and cynicism, as she prepared to wash the cooking dishes and found an empty dish-water pot. “I should think the jelly would grow hard and crusty before the tarts baked, but I suppose it's all right. Everything we touch to-day is sure to fail.”
“Oh, how much better if you said, 'I'll try, I'll try, I'll try,'” sang Bell, in a spasm of gayety.
“Oh, how much sadder you will feel when you've tried, by and by,” retorted Edith. “Is there anything difficult about pastry, I wonder? Look in the cookbook. Does it have to be soaked over night like ham, or hung for two weeks like game, or put away in a stone jar like fruit-cake, or 'braised' or 'trussed' or 'larded' or anything?”
“No,” said Patty, looking up from the 'Bride's Manual,' “but it has to be pounded on a marble slab with a glass rolling-pin.”
“Stuff and nonsense,” said Bell, “Tarts are nothing but pie-crust. This village is situated in the very middle of what is called the New England Pie Belt, and the glass rolling-pin and the marble slab have never been seen by the oldest or youngest inhabitant. I know that bride. When she makes pastry you can see her diamond engagement ring flash as she dips her turquoise scoop into her ruby flour-barrel. Look up soft gingerbread, Patty.”
“Four cups best New Orleans molasses—”
“The molasses is out,” said Jo; “find jelly-cake.”