"What a shame it seems!" said Molly. "When I have children," she went on serenely, "I shall love them all alike—whether they're ugly or pretty, if anything perhaps the ugliest most, to make up to them, you see."
"I thought you were never going to marry," said Ralph. "For you're never going to England, and you'll never marry a Frenchman."
"Englishmen might come here," replied Molly. "And when you and Sylvia go to England, you might take some of my photographs to show."
This was too much. Ralph laughed so that he rolled on the rug, and Sylvia nearly fell off her chair. Even grandmother joined in the merriment, and aunty came over from her corner to ask what it was all about.
"I have finished my story," she said. "I am so glad."
"And when, oh, when will you read it?" cried the children.
"On the evening of the twenty-second of December. I fixed that while I was writing it, for that was the day it happened on," said aunty. "That will be next Monday, and this is Friday. Not so very long to wait. And after all it's a very short story—not nearly so long as grandmother's."
"Never mind, we'll make it longer by talking about it," said Molly. "That's how I did at home when I had a very small piece of cake for tea. I took one bite of cake to three or four of bread and butter. It made it seem much more."
"I can perfectly believe that you will be ready to provide the necessary amount of 'bread and butter' to eke out my story," said aunty gravely.
And Molly stared at her in such comical bewilderment as to what she meant, that she set them all off laughing again.