THE BRIDE-CAKE SHILLING COMES TO LIGHT All the way home she kept nervously rehearsing to herself the explanation which she intended to make, so absorbed in her thoughts, that she started guiltily when the girls laughed, and she found that Phil had asked her a question three times without attracting her attention.

When they reached the house it was some time before she could slip upstairs unobserved.

No amateur burglar, afraid of discovery, ever made a more stealthy approach towards his booty than she made towards the telephone.

At any moment some one might come running up to the nursery.

Three times she started out of her door, and each time the upstairs maid came through the hall and she drew back again.
When she finally screwed up her courage to sit down at the desk and find the rector's number, her heart was beating so fast that her voice trembled, as if she were on the verge of tears.