“Now if you will sit very still, and not move, I’ll bring out some pieces of my china set and show them to you,” said Miss Pompret.  “You were so kind as to take the letter to the post-office for me when I could not go myself, that I feel I ought to reward you to some way.”

“The chocolate cake was enough,” said Nan.

“Yes, it was awful good!” sighed Bert.

“Mother told you not to say ‘awful,’” interposed Ben’s sister.

“Oh, well, I mean it was terribly nice!” exclaimed the boy.

“I’m glad you liked it,” went on Miss Pompret with a smile.  “But I must not keep you too long, or your mother will be wondering what has become of you.  But I thought you, Nan, would be interested in seeing beautiful china.  You’ll have a home of your own, some day, and nothing is nicer in a nice home than beautiful dishes.”

“I know that!” cried Nan.  “My mamma has some very beautiful dishes, and once in a great while she lets me look them over.  Sometimes, too, we have them on the table—­when it’s some special occasion like a birthday or visitors.”

“I don’t much like to see the real nice dishes on a table,” remarked Bert.  “I’m always afraid that I’ll break one of them, and then I know my mother would feel pretty bad over it.”

“You must be careful, my boy.  You can’t handle nice china as you can your baseball or your football,” said Miss Pompret, with a smile.

“Well, I guess they couldn’t treat dishes like baseballs and footballs!” cried Nan.  “Just think of throwing a sugar bowl up into the air or hitting it with a bat, or kicking a teapot all around the lots!”

“That certainly wouldn’t be very nice,” said Miss Pompret.

She went over to the closet, unlocked the glass doors, and set some of the rare pieces out on the lace cover of the dining room table.  Bert and Nan saw that Miss Pompret handled each piece as though it might be crushed, even in her delicate hands, which were almost as white and thin as a piece of china.

“This is the wonderful Pompret tableware,” went on the old lady.  “It has been in my family over a hundred years.  My great-grandfather had it, and now it has come to me.  I have had it a number of years, and I think more of it than anything else I have.  Of course, if I had any little children I would care for them more than for these dishes,” went on Miss Pompret.  “But I’m a lonely old lady, and you neighborhood children are the only ones I have,” and she smiled rather wistfully at Nan and Bert.

Carefully dish after dish was taken from the closet and set out for the Bobbsey twins to look at.  They did not venture to so much as touch one.  The china seemed too easily broken for that.

“I should think you’d have to be very careful when you washed those dishes,” remarked Nan, as she saw how light glowed through the side of one of the thin cups.

“Oh, I am,” answered Miss Pompret.  “No one ever washes this set but me.  My maid is very careful, but I would not allow her to touch a single piece.  I don’t use it very often.  Only when some old and dear friends come to see me is the Pompret china used.  And then I am sorry to say, I can not use the whole set.”