Charlotte lifted the cover, and surveyed the fire with a critical though somewhat humbled air.  Then after letting it burn up a little she put in a goodly supply of coal and went back to her apples.

“The cake and the apples must go in as soon as the oven is hot,” said Dorothy, emerging from her cook-book.  “That will leave the oven free for my oysters and Betty’s popovers.”

Ruth gave a squeal of delight.  “I’ve found a recipe for a pudding that sounds perfectly fascinating, and the cooking can be done on the top of the stove, which is an advantage.”

“I can’t decide between a chocolate cream cake and a cake with caramel filling,” wailed Katharine, who loved rich, mushy, sweet things.

“Goodness, child,” said Dorothy, with that superior air which she so often affected, “don’t try anything so hard the first time.  Find something simple.”

“Crushed again,” muttered Katharine, only loud enough for Ruth to hear.  “Dolly loves to manage everything.  You mustn’t even breathe hard, girls, for ten minutes, and don’t walk so heavily,” she said as she carried her cake pan across the kitchen and deposited it in the oven.  “This cake is going to be simply dandy, and my heart will be broken if it falls.”

“Better not leave the oven door open so long then,” said Betty, who having nothing to do for the moment was interesting herself in her neighbor’s affairs.

Katharine, who had been absorbed in gazing proudly at her creation, started guiltily, and the oven door slipping from her fingers shut itself with a crash that filled her with horror.

“Do you suppose that old door’s spoiled it?” she said in a despairing voice.  “I don’t see how it can fall, though, till it has begun to rise,” she added hopefully to Betty as she went back to the table to clear away her cooking dishes.

“Just give a look at my apples when you’re looking at your cake, will you, Kit?” asked Charlotte, who had produced a small book from some mysterious hiding-place, and was slipping off into a comer with it.

“That isn’t fair,” called Dorothy sharply, but Charlotte pretended not to hear, and Dorothy with a shrug of the shoulders gave her up as a hopeless case.  Dorothy and Charlotte were apt to turn their sharp edges toward each other, though either would have defended the other had an outsider interfered.

“Dear me, things look too good to be true,” said Ruth a little later as Katharine took her cake, golden-brown and deliciously light, from the oven.  “It seems as though some one would have to make a failure of something.”

“It won’t be my apples,” proclaimed Charlotte with great pride.  “Now I call that an artistic piece of cookery; they’re not all mushy and cooked to death, but they’ve split open just enough to show that they’re done.”

“Small credit to you,” laughed Alice.  “If it hadn’t been for Katharine you wouldn’t have come out of your book for the next hour.”