Automatically dipping the huge metal ladle--one filling of which was enough for a service--into the big soup kettle, she stood for a moment gazing into its magenta depths oblivious to everything but the rhapsodic consideration of her realized dream. Now for the first time she was contributing directly her own strength and energy to the public which she served. She had prepared with her own hands the meal which her grateful patrons were consuming. The little girls with the tired faces, the jaded men, the smart, weary business women--buyers and secretaries and modistes,--who were occupied in the neighborhood were all being literally nourished by her. She had actually manufactured the product that was to sustain them through the weary day of heat and effort. "How do they like the lunch, Molly?" she asked, as she deftly deposited the forty-fifth serving of chicken with Béchamel sauce on the exact center of the plate before her. "Are they pleased with the soup? Are they saying complimentary things about the chicken?" "Some of them is, Miss Nancy. Some of them is complaining that they can't get any other kind of soup. Them that usually gets invalid broth don't understand our running out of it." "I forgot about the specials," Nancy cried. "That red-haired girl that we feed on custards and nut bread and that special cocoa Gaspard makes for her, she acted real bad. They get expecting certain things, and then they want them." "I'm sorry," Nancy said; "I'll make all those things to-morrow." "The old feller that always has the stewed prunes is terrible pleased though. I give him two helps of the peaches, and he wanted another. He was pleased to get white bread too. He complains something dreadful about his bran biscuit every day." "I meant to send to the woman's exchange for different kinds of health bread, but I forgot it," Nancy moaned. "Do they like the peaches at all?" "Most of them likes them too well. There was one old lady that got one whiff of them, and pushed back her chair and left. I guess she had took the pledge, and the brandy went against her principles." "I never thought of that. I only thought that brandied peaches would be a treat to so many people who didn't have them habitually served at home." The picture in Nancy's mind changed in color a trifle. She could see sour-faced spinsters at single tables pushing back their chairs, overturning the rose bowls in their hurry to shake the dust of her restaurant from their feet. "Don't accept any money from people who don't like their luncheon," she admonished Molly, who was next in line with several orders to be filled at once. "Tell them that the proprietor of Outside Inn prefers not to be paid unless the meal is entirely satisfactory." "I'm afraid there wouldn't never be any satisfactory meals if I told them that, Miss Nancy."