"It's too bad, but hadn't you better go back for some more?" the lady suggested pleasantly.
Betty hesitated, and her color rose.
"I think not to-day," she said a little primly; "mother might not like it. I don't mind about myself," she added quickly, "but I'm sorry for Jack; he's very fond of cream cakes."
"Is Jack your little brother?" Winifred asked.
"Yes; how did you know I had a little brother?"
"The woman at the baker's said so, and she said he was a cripple."
Betty's face softened wonderfully. By this time they had abandoned the cream cakes to their fate, and were all three walking on together towards the big apartment house on the next corner.
"Yes, he is a cripple," she said; "he can't walk at all. He had a fall when he was a baby, and it hurt his spine."
"How very sad," said Winifred sympathetically; "how did it happen?"
"His nurse dropped him one day when mother and father were out. She didn't tell at first, and nobody knew what was the matter with Jack, and what made him cry whenever any one touched him. At last the doctor found out that his spine was injured, and then she confessed."