In rural England the making of the Christmas cake and the subsequent tastings' are both something of a religion—an in-tegal part of the festival, and inseparable from much of its custom and tradition. For weeks agone our village ladies have compared recipes, discussed the mysteries of cake-making" and baking, and flitted to. and fro those anxious and fateful days of egg-breaking, mixing, and stirring.
The event—for it 7s an event—looms large in the rural calendar, ranking in importance as it does with a birth, a funeral, a wedding, a threshing, or a pig-killing day. At stated intervals neighbors will congregate and peer, skewer in hand and with bated breath, into the recess beyond the cautiously opened oven-door. They are tense moments these, and even the most stolid, calm and collected: matrons will betray more than a passing flute ter of excitement. For the nonce the yet anemic-looking cake is as a king seated upon a threatened throne, with his courtiers around him hoping for the best, but ever fearful that the worst may happen. Doubts, assurances, and reassurances are exchanged in whispers as the assembled ladies fan themselves with spotless white aprons, donned to do honour to the occasion.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.