a gaily flowered covered dish, the one fragile article to be seen, set conspicuously alone, insistent upon drawing attention.
"Must be nectar of a sort," suggested Beatrice. "To demand so wonderfully beautiful a receptacle."
Steele chuckled.
"Scarcely less," he rejoined. "That dish, chosen I might say painfully in a distant city by the Chief Emissary, Bill Rice, set the royal exchequer back to the tune of ninety-eight cents. Notice the new colour scheme, purple roses against a field of orange with violets flirting between a pale shade of red and a deep shade of pink! Will the queen deign to lift the cover?"
Realizing that she was always on the verge of forgetting that she would rather have "died than come here today," Beatrice obeyed. Steele, explaining, offered the remark:
"From the only literature pot to the occasion with which I happen to be conversant, the good old poem dealing with a situation not unlike today's, I judge that whenever the Queen is in the kitchen she ought to be …"
"Eating bread and honey!" laughed Beatrice. "Mr. Steele, your thoughtfulness touches me deeply! And I do love bread and honey. And here's butter, too. If you don't mind … you see, with the ride over and a pretty fair appetite at ordinary times …"
And Steele wasn't quite so sure of his Beatrice Corliss as he had been before. He saw her perched on the edge of his table, a trim booted little foot swung back and forth and Beatrice's white teeth met through a most
