Nobody could have dreamed as she cut it, every turn of her burned wrist giving her pain, of the frantic haste with which she had taken that old fruit cake out of the jar down-cellar, and pulled those sprigs of myrtle from the bank under the north windows.
"Will you have some weddin'-cake ?" said she.
The ladies each took a slice gingerly and respectfully.

Mrs.Lowe and Mrs.Robbins nodded to each other imperceptibly.

The cake was not iced with those fine devices which usually make a wedding-loaf, it was rather dry, and not particularly rich; but Mrs.Maxwell's perfect manner as she cut and served it, her acting on her own little histrionic stage, had swayed them to her will.

Mrs.Lowe and Mrs.
Robbins both thought she knew.

But the minister's wife still doubted; and later, when the other women were removed from the spell of her acting, their old suspicions returned.