"I wish to congratulate you, Horry, upon your excellent care of this pie in transit." He passed the plate to Horry as he spoke. "No, this is your piece, Horry. That piece is destined for me. In view of the unavoidable inequality of the pieces, we will give Filcher the plate." Sally was chuckling as she ate her piece of pie, which she held in her hand. "Th--th--this w--w--weath--ther's t--t--terrible h--h--hard on p--p--pies," observed Horry thoughtfully, after a long silence. "It w--w--wouldn't k--k--keep," said Harry, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand. "It wouldn't," Jane agreed. Ollie was scraping the plate. "Can't get any more out of that plate," he sighed at last; and he scaled the tin plate into an inaccessible place between the lilacs and the fence. They moved away slowly. "I wonder," Jane remarked, reflectively, "who sent that pie." Sally chuckled again. "Cousin Patty sent it," she said. CHAPTER VIII Sally found that summer very full. To begin with, there was Dick's Class Day, which was her first great occasion. I do not know what better to call it and it must have been a great occasion for her, for, although it did not last very long,--days never do,--the memory of it has not completely faded even yet; and it was twelve years ago. As if to make her joy complete, her mother had gone and Miss Patty had not. Not that Sally had ever the least conscious objection to Miss Patty's going anywhere, but Patty always acted as a sort of damper upon too much joy. Poor Patty! She had not the slightest wish to be a sort of a damper and she did not suspect that she was. Mrs. Ladue was no damper. She had sat in Dick's particular easy-chair, very smiling and content, while Dick brought things to eat and to drink to her and to Sally in the window-seat. And there had been a puzzled look in Dick's eyes all the time that made Mrs. Ladue laugh and made Sally blush whenever she saw it. It was as if Dick's eyes had just been opened; and he found it hard to realize that the blossoming young creature in his window-seat was the same Sally that he had known so well. That and other considerations will explain Mrs. Ladue's laughter well enough, but hardly explain why Sally should have blushed. I don't know why she did and I doubt if she could have told. Then--for Dick's Class Day was only to begin with--there were his further good-natured attentions, which did not mean anything, of course, Mrs. Ladue told herself, over and over. Of course Dick liked Sally--who would not? And there was more fun in doing anything for her than in doing it for anybody else, for Sally enjoyed everything so much. Dick even took her sailing half a dozen times, although there was nobody else on his parties younger than his sister Emily. And there was Jane; but not on Dick's sailing parties.