The baker's cart drew up at the gate, and the man, springing lightly down, came up the garden-path with a basket of loaves. "Now she will be vexed at having to answer the door," thought Bella. "I wish I knew what bread to take in." That, however, was more than she dare do, so she contented herself with going in, to warn her aunt of the baker's approach. "The baker is coming, Aunt Emma," she said quietly. "Well, s'posing he is! Surely you'm old enough to take the bread from him; or do you want me to do it while you look on? It won't soil your hands to touch a loaf of bread." "How many loaves shall I take in?" asked Bella patiently. "Oh, I don't know! I don't know what we've got, and I can't stay to see. Three would do, I should hope." Bella looked at the baker's basket, and her spirit sank; there were pale loaves and brown ones, and loaves of all shapes. Which should she take? Which would please her aunt? At last she picked up what she thought was a nice tempting-looking one. Surely that would do for one, she thought. The baker interposed. "Miss Hender don't like that shape," he said shortly; "she thinks 'em too crusty. Most folks prefer 'em," he added meaningly. Bella laid down the loaf and took up another. "Miss Hender don't----" the man began again, but stopped. What did it matter to him, he thought, what the cross-grained woman liked or didn't like? He had trouble enough when she came to the door herself; so he hastily put two other loaves in Bella's hands, and left as quickly as he could. Of course, when Aunt Emma caught sight of the loaves, there was a nagging and a scolding. They were wrong in shape and colour and size, and everything else. "I should have thought a great girl like you might have known the kind of loaf we generally have, and not have taken in such things as those!" "As you are always complaining of those we do have, I thought you'd like a change," was the retort that trembled on Bella's lips, but she kept the words back. "I thought these looked nice," was all she said. Indeed, they looked so nice and smelt so deliciously, she could have eaten a large crust of one then and there. She was very hungry, poor child; but on washing-days the children were not expected to be hungry, and, as a rule, no meal was got for any one between breakfast and the evening one, when their father came home. On washing-days nothing could be attended to but the washing.