"I can still in my mind see your beautiful white floor
and shining window-panes, down there by the sea. You, too, are clean, my
sweet child, I know! Now, have you any supper had?"
"Why, no, not a bit!" laughing. "I had almost forgotten."
"Well, I hadn't," said Morton, "I'm about starved!"
"I, too!" cried Molly, and the baby put in a pathetic plea for "bed-e-
mik" that was irresistible.
"Ah, such fun!" cried the madame merrily, as she whisked off her wraps.
"I did think it would be so, and I had that good Hoffstott to send us a
nice little tin kitchen that I now have hidden away in the warm oven;
and see! I did take some dishes out of the barrel. We will have a supper
to make a _chef_ rave with envy soon!"
If it would hardly produce so dire an effect on a head-cook, it
certainly gave supreme satisfaction to the partakers; for in the tin
kitchen, which seemed to prying Molly like some Fortunatus box, was a
dear little pot of baked beans, some steaming rolls, and potatoes baked
in their jackets, while from a cooler place came a dainty glass of jam,
and some cake.
It was now dark, and the children felt surrounded by wonders. As Molly
expressed it, "Madame just turned a handle, and the light shot out; and
turned another, and the water fell out;" and she asked, innocently
enough, if, when they wanted milk or tea, all that people had to do here
was just to move a handle, and let it run out of the wall! But madame,
after her laughter, answered this by proceeding to steep some tea in an
odd little contrivance over the gas-jet, much as Sara did over the log-
fire at home; but neither Morton nor Molly would have been surprised to
see food come sliding in, all cooked, or clothes all made, by the simple
turn of a crank, so like fairyland was it all.
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