Now she rolled out the paste, and cut a long strip the third of an inch thick and an inch wide. She wetted the lip of the dish, laid the paste round, and pressed it close on the _inner_ side, so that the gravy could not boil up under it. Then she moistened the upper surface, laid the sheet of paste over the pie, and with both hands gently pressed the paste into the groove formed between the dome shape of the meat and the dish; then, with a sharp knife, she cut off the overlapping paste, so as not to drag it in the least; and then, with the back of her forefinger, laid on the top of the border, pressed the upper and under paste gently, _but closely_, together, but was very careful to leave the _edges_ untouched. She cut a hole in the centre to let out steam, rolled a piece of paste very thin, cut from it four diamonds two inches long from point to point, laid the four, with the points to the centre, round the hole; and, rolling another bit of paste as thin as paper, dusted it with flour, folded it up several times, then turned the four corners of the little many-folded square to form a little ball as large as an olive, and cut a cross deeply, and with a sharp knife, across the top; then turned back the corners as if she were opening a pond-lily bud; and there was a rough imitation of a flower. This she inserted in the hole in the pie, which it was large enough to cover, without closing up too much for the steam to get out. With a feather she now brushed the pie over with the yolk of an egg, not leaving a spot untouched, _except the edge_, which was not glazed. Molly explained to Marta, who asked the reason for the omission as she passed on her way to the boiler, for she was washing. “If I washed the edges with egg, the paste could not rise so well; for the leaves would be glued together, as it were. This is the rule in all use of pastry: _Leave the edges quite untouched_; do not even smooth them with your finger. Smoothing them and pressing them with your thumb, which I have told you _not_ to do, is the reason why your pies, even if I make the paste, are never as handsome as mine. You smooth the life out of the paste and squeeze all the air from between the leaves which one is at such trouble to make; and it is the air that causes the flakes.” Molly put the pie in the oven, which was about the right heat for bread,—that is to say, she could count twenty-five while her hand was held in it. In an hour, it was pale brown all over. It was taken out of the oven, and left a few minutes on the table till the contents had ceased to boil; and then what remained of the jelly was warmed, the pastry “rose” was lifted gently from the centre, a funnel inserted in the hole, and the jelly, warmed, was poured carefully through it into the pie. Molly watched, while pouring slowly, that the last disappeared before adding more, for fear the pie might overflow; then the “rose” was replaced.