How seldom can man follow his desire. Edward would have liked to fall on his knees among the cabbage-stalks and the drifting dust and straw and paper--to kneel before her and kiss her feet. For, in that moment, and for the first time, he worshiped her. The imbecile irrationality of this will not have escaped you. He worshiped her for the very thought, the very impulse of simple loving-kindness which he had been ashamed to let her know as his own. She kindled to the lighting of his face. "I knew you would," she said. "You are a dear." The same irrational admiration shone in her eyes. "Sweets? Pounds and pounds of?" "Buns," he answered, "buns and rock-cakes. Sweets afterward, if you like," and enthusiastically led the way to the nearest baker's. Now this is difficult to believe and quite impossible to explain, but it is true. No human ear but their own had heard this interchange. "Sweets," "buns," and "rock-cakes," those words of power had, in fact, been spoken in the softest whisper, but from the moment of their being spoken a sort of wireless telegraphy ran down that mean street from end to end, and by the time they reached the baker's they had a ragged following of some fifty children, while from court and alley and narrow side-street came ever more and more children, ragged children, stuffily dressed children, children carrying bags, children carrying parcels, children carrying babies and jugs and jars and bundles. The crowd of children pressed around the baker's door, and noses flattened like the suckers of the octopus in aquariums marked a long line across the window a little above the level of the bun-trays. I do not pretend to explain how this happened. Good news proverbially travels fast. It also travels by ways past finding out. She began to take the buns by twos and threes from the tray in the window, and held them out. A forest of lean arms reached up and a shrill chorus of, "Me, teacher! Me!" varied by, "She's 'ad one--me next, teacher! Let the little boy 'ave one, lady; 'e 'ain't 'ad nuffin." The woman of the shop rolled forward. She was as perfectly spherical as is possible to the human form. "Treat, sir?" she said, in a thick, rich, husky voice (like cake, as Edward said later). They owned her guess correct. "How much'll you go to?" "A bun apiece," said Edward. "For the whole street? Why, there's hundreds!" "The more the merrier," said Mr. Basingstoke. "Do 'e mean it?" the woman asked, turning to the bun-giver. "Yes, oh yes." The girl turned from the door to lean over the smooth deal counter. "It's our wedding-day," she whispered, "and we didn't give any wedding-breakfast, so we thought we'd give one now." Edward had turned to the door and was making a speech. "You shall all have a bun," he said, "to eat the lady's health in. But it's one at a time. Now you just hold on a minute and don't be impatient."