MOLLY congratulated herself on her unusual good fortune in securing such a girl as Marta, when she saw, in initiating her into the bedroom work, how well she did it. But she was not to be without her trials, even with this treasure, any more than every other housekeeper. When she knew, by the time, that the bread was ready, being deep in the draping of some chintz she had had in their city room, she told Marta to run down and put it in the oven, and to take the cover off the cake, but on no account to _move_ or _shake_ it, as the bread would go in on the other side of it. Marta ran down, if the term can be applied to the lumbering movement with which she hurled herself down-stairs. Molly heard her carrying out her order, and then she heard a sound that elicited an exclamation of annoyance. It was the sound of the oven door closing with a tremendous bang. “My poor cake! how vexatious!” For a moment vexation impelled her to scold Marta, but if Molly was one thing more than another, she was reasonable. Her blame was for herself more than for the girl. “How could she know? I must give her a general caution; I suppose the cake is gone utterly.” It was. She met Marta returning to her up-stairs work smiling serenely. “Marta, I want you to come and look at the result of banging the oven door in that way when cake is in the oven,—and you must remember, too, never to set a pot heavily on the range; when a cake has once risen, until quite done, any sudden jar will cause it to settle down. Look at this; you see the cake is all sunken.” Marta stood, the picture of concern, her teeth pressed tight over her under lip. “Never mind, we’ll look on the cake as a lesson; to-morrow you must make another as you saw me do this. Go and finish up-stairs, and I think, as we have no cake to-day, I will make a pie for dinner. When you come down you will see me make the paste, as everything I do I hope you will do later.”