THE CITRON CAKE.

It had been raining, and little Archie had soiled his shoes by running into the back yard to give the dog his breakfast; so when it was time for him to go to school he did not leave the house by the front way, through the clean hall and down the whitened stone steps; he went through the kitchen and got out by the back door. The store-room was near the kitchen, and as Archie passed the store-room door, he saw something that surprised him. He saw grandmamma standing upon a high stool, and taking something down from the very highest shelf in the closet. Archie could not help stopping to look what it was. It was a large piece of citron, and as grandmamma gave it to the cook, Archie heard her say—

"You may put it all into the cake, Cook, for I wish it to be a very good one."

Archie was just going to run into the store-room and ask for whom the very good cake was meant when he heard the clock strike ten, and he was so much

afraid of being late for school that he set off running at once, and never stopped till he reached the school-house door.

During the business of saying his lessons he quite forgot what he had heard about the citron cake, but it came into his head again while he was writing his copy, and he could not help whispering about it to his friend Talbot, who sat at the desk next him. "If I have a slice, you may be sure I shall give half to you," said Archie.

And Talbot looked pleased, for though he was not at all a greedy boy, he was particularly fond of citron cake. Archie and Talbot walked home from school together, as they always did, and they planned that if Archie had a slice of the cake given him he should save the whole of it, and that they would make a real feast with it, after afternoon school, in the old orchard behind the house.

Dinner-time came; there was first meat and then pudding.

"I am surprised about the pudding," thought Archie; "we seldom have pudding and cake too;" and he thought it would be wise to take only a small piece of the pudding.

"You need not sit any longer, my dear," said grandmamma, when the pudding and the cloth

were both taken away, "there is nothing else coming."

"I sup

Archie slipped slowly from his chair. pose the cake is not baked yet," he said to himself; "how silly I was to say anything about it to Talbot;" and then, instead of running off gaily to school, he strolled into the little back parlour to waste his time in talking to the parrot. Poll stretched out her green neck as soon as she saw Archie, and called at the top of her voice

"A bit of cake for Poll; give poor Poll a bit of cake."

"I have not got any cake, you stupid bird," said Archie, crossly; "what can make you think of cake just now?"

The next minute Archie saw that poor Poll was not to blame for thinking of cake, for there, on the round table, just before the cage, stood the citron cake,cut into nice square pieces, and piled up on a china plate. Archie stood for three minutes looking at it. "Well," he said to himself, "I must say it is greedy of grandmamma to keep all that for herself, so very full of citron as it is too." There was one very thick piece that lay across the top, and it looked as if it were going to tumble down. Archie put out his hand to push it further

on the plate; as he touched the cake another thought came into his mind. "Do," said one voice; "Don't, don't," said another voice, that seemed to come from the bottom of his heart; but Archie did. He took the large piece of cake and began to eat it as fast as ever he could: he never once thought of his grandmamma; he never once thought of Talbot; he only thought how quickly he could get the cake eaten, and that he hoped no one would come into the room till he had done. All the time he was eating, Poll kept stretching out her neck and screaming, "A bit of cake for Poll; a bit of cake for poor Poll." "Oh, grandmamma will hear," said Archie; and he broke off a corner of cake and threw it into the cage to keep the bird quiet; then, afraid to go out by the hall door, he scrambled through the low parlour window and ran down the quiet street.

When he reached the corner he stopped; his face was very hot and his heart beat so fast that he was obliged to lean against the area rails to rest himself. Then the voice that had said "Don't, don't," so quietly in the parlour, began to speak to him quite loud:

"Archie, Archie," it said, "what a mean, selfish, greedy boy you are; you have stolen your grand

mamma's cake and eaten it all yourself without once thinking of Talbot. I did not know you were so bad."

"It can't be helped now," said the other voice; "let us think no more about it."

Archie tried very hard not to think any more. about it, but he could not help thinking; everything that happened at school put him in mind of it. He did not like any one to look at him; and when Talbot asked him, in a whisper, if he had brought the cake, Archie felt so angry that he gave him a great push and knocked him off the end of the form. The boys said they had never seen Archie so cross before, and the master said he was so stupid, he must be asleep. All the lessons went wrong, and Archie was kept for an hour to learn them again, while the other boys played in the orchard. It seemed to him as if citron cake was written all over the grammar, and the spelling, and the history-book.

When he got home, grandmamma was waiting tea in the back parlour. The instant he came into the room, Poll stretched out her neck and began again with her tiresome "A piece of cake, Archie, a piece of cake," It made Archie feel quite sick; he could not eat anything, though grand