By this time the patties were baked. They were more than three inches high, and after they had been out of the oven a short time, Molly carefully removed the centre of the top layer marked out with the small cutter, and laid it aside, for it was the cover of the patty; then with a small coffee-spoon she scooped out the half-cooked paste from the centre, and then replaced the top. They were now ready to be filled, but as they would have to be made hot for dinner she did not fill them, as the paste would be burnt up before the inside would be warm; she therefore directed Marta to stand the oysters in boiling water a few minutes before serving them, and keep them stirred, and to put the patty-cases in the oven at the same time; let them get thoroughly heated, and when both were hot, put the oyster filling in them with a spoon. Molly gave these directions for the moral effect, but, having strong suspicions that Marta would be unequal to such neat-handed work and might cover the outside of the patties with the filling, saw to that part herself before going to the table. CHAPTER XVII. MR. AND MRS. BISHOP BECOME MEMBERS OF A DRAMATIC CLUB—CROQUETTES OVER AGAIN—WHERE THE MISTAKE LAY—WHITE SOUP. HARRY and Molly had talked over the matter of the dramatic club, and whether they could afford to join it. Molly was old enough, not being a school-girl bride—did I ever mention that she was twenty-four?—and had seen enough of the world to know that, although a woman’s ideal of married life may be to sew in the evening, while her husband reads to her, or, if he is weary, to read to him while he rests, a man very often prefers something more exhilarating. Although Harry had never seemed bored by a tête-a-tête evening, she remembered that he had never yet been subjected to the long uninterrupted quiet of country winter nights, and she wanted to run no risk of him finding their life humdrum. He was not a reader in the true sense of the word,—that is to say, he read for amusement’s sake. If the book he read was not to his mind, he threw it aside, or fell asleep over it, and he was not so fond of reading aloud as Molly could have wished. However, this was one of the little disappointments most women, and some men, have to put up with, and she was thankful there was nothing worse. It is true that, finding Harry cared less for reading than herself, she had devoted herself to chess, of which he was very fond, and their evenings seldom passed without having the men out; but Harry was too much in sympathy with his wife not to know that chess, to her, was a sort of loving pleasure, and had often pretended disinclination; therefore the prospect of a weekly social meeting and the many little entertainments that would grow out of it was, for Harry’s sake, a pleasant one. “What are the actual expenses?” she had asked.