In the morning I dressed so slowly that it was nine o’clock before I was buttoned into my dress and felt that I could go over and help Roxanne bear the calamity.  It was Saturday, so I knew she would need help in doing all the things she leaves undone until this blessed day of relief from school cares and responsibilities comes.

It is strange how ignorant one can be of the disposition of the very person she loves best on earth.  Did I find Roxanne Byrd dissolved in an indigo sea on the day after she had lost a huge fortune?  Not at all!  She was floating still higher on a still more rosy cloud and eating a large slice of the most delicious nut cake, while Lovelace Peyton did likewise.

“Oh, Phyllis, I was just going to call you to get a piece of Uncle Pompey’s nut cake before it gets cold.  It is famous in Byrdsville, and I’ve been dying to have one made to give you ever since you came; only I couldn’t get the materials.  It takes every good thing in a grocery, from ginger to preserved cherries, to go in it, and it is best hot.  Uncle Pompey said for me to wait until the second pan came out of the stove to call you, because it is always best.  He has out the Sheffield tray with the old point cover on it and one of great-grandmother Byrd’s willow plates to put it on for you.  I’ll let him bring it to you and see you taste it.  Poor Uncle Pompey is a famous cook, and economy has been agony to him.  I’m going to let him make every good thing he wants to this week.  He has been held down so long.”  Roxanne bubbled along like a lovely mountain torrent of cheerfulness, while I stood rooted to the spot in an astonishment that I could not conceal.

“Oh, Roxanne,” I said weakly, as I sank into a chair.

“Yes, Phyllis, I suppose it is funny to see me enjoying the cake like this after what happened last night; but the Byrds always make other plans as soon as anything happens to the first one.  Douglass and I decided to rest from the steel invention by having things we want for two or three months, and then he knows something greater to invent than steel could ever be.  He hasn’t told me yet, but I’ll tell you when he does.  Oh, there’s Uncle Pompey with the cake.  It’s lovely, isn’t it, Phyllis?”

If a person went to a funeral and met the dead friend at the door handing her a piece of cake, I suppose she would feel about like I did when that funny old black man handed me that lovely and elegant tray with a grin on his face so wide that it is a wonder it didn’t meet itself at the back of his head.  I wonder to this moment where I got the enthusiasm with which I accepted it.

“Eat all you want to, Phyllis, ’cause I’ve got a good plaster to put on the place when the ache comes,” Lovelace Peyton advised from his seat on the floor where he was alternately eating his piece of cake and rolling black pills from the crumbs that he caught in a pasteboard box.

And as I sat and munched that piece of historic Byrd cookery my brain turned over in my head and settled itself in a new way.  My whole nature underwent a revolution.  I saw that a person can either accept life as a piece of fluffy cake when it is handed to her or look on it all as—­soggy.  I’m going to follow Roxanne’s example after this and see the fluffiness of the cake determinedly.