After that, it was poured into a cake-mould, and put into the oven, where it had rather an unpleasant time of it.  It was so hot in there that if the farmer’s wife had not watched it carefully, it would have been burned.

“But I am cake,” it said, “and of the richest kind, so I can bear it, even if it is uncomfortable.”

When it was taken out, it really was cake, and it felt as if it was quite satisfied.  Everyone who came into the kitchen and saw it, said—­

“Oh, what a nice cake!  How well your new flour has done!”

But just once, while it was cooling, it had a curious, disagreeable feeling.  It found, all at once, that the two boys, Lionel and Vivian, had come quietly into the kitchen and stood near the table, looking at the cake with their great eyes wide open and their little red mouths open, too.

“Dear me,” it said.  “How nervous I feel—­actually nervous.  What great eyes they have, and how they shine! and what are those sharp white things in their mouths?  I really don’t like them to look at me in that way.  It seems like something personal.  I wish the farmer’s wife would come.”

Such a chill ran over it, that it was quite cool when the woman came in, and she put it away in the cupboard on a plate.

But, that very afternoon, she took it out again and set it on the table on a glass cake-stand.  She put some leaves around it to make it look nice, and it noticed there were a great many other things on the table, and they all looked fresh and bright.

“This is all in my honour,” it said.  “They know I am rich.”

Then several people came in and took chairs around the table.

“They all come to sit and look at me,” said the vain cake.  “I wish the learned grain could see me now.”

There was a little high-chair on each side of the table, and at first these were empty, but in a few minutes the door opened and in came the two little boys.  They had pretty, clean dresses on, and their “bangs” and curls were bright with being brushed.

“Even they have been dressed up to do me honour,” thought the cake.

[ILLUSTRATION:  “THERE’S THE CAKE,” HE SAID.]

But, the next minute, it began to feel quite nervous again, Vivian’s chair was near the glass stand, and when he had climbed up and seated himself, he put one elbow on the table and rested his fat chin on his fat hand, and fixing his eyes on the cake, sat and stared at it in such an unnaturally quiet manner for some seconds, that any cake might well have felt nervous.

“There’s the cake,” he said, at last, in such a deeply thoughtful voice that the cake felt faint with anger.

Then a remarkable thing happened.  Some one drew the stand toward them and took the knife and cut out a large slice of the cake.

“Go away,” said the cake, though no one heard it.  “I am cake!  I am rich!  I am not for boys!  How dare you?”