"And when a person is in the neighborhood of seventy-five, I suppose you thank her kindly for a good slap in the face."

The doctor laughed heartily.

"Precisely," said he. "And now tell me what has happened. You are all right, I see. How are the Cobhurst people getting on?"

"Oh, well enough," said Miss Panney. "The young man and that Cicely Drane of yours have agreed to marry each other, and I suppose the old lady will live with them, and Miriam will have to get down from her high horse and agree to play second fiddle, or go to school again. She is too young for anything else."

The doctor stared. "You amaze me!" he cried.

"Oh, you needn't be amazed," said Miss Panney; "I did it!"

"You?" said the doctor, "I thought you wanted him to marry Dora."

"If you thought that," said Miss Panney, flashing her black eyes upon him, "why did you lend yourself to such an underhanded piece of business as the sending of that Drane girl there?"

"Oh, bless my soul!" exclaimed the doctor, "I did not lend myself to anything. I did not send her there to be married. Let us drop that, and tell me how you came to change your mind."

"I have a rule about dropping things," said the old lady, "and with people of vigorous intellect, I never do it, but when any one is getting on in years and a little soft-minded, so that he does what he is told to do without being able to see the consequences of it, I pity him and drop the subject which worries his conscience. I have not changed my mind in the least. I still think that Dora would be the best wife young Haverley could have, and after I found that you had added to your treacheries or stupidities, or whatever they were, by carrying her off to Barport, I intended to take advantage of the situation, so I got Dora to invite Miriam there, feeling sure that the Drane women would have sense enough to know that they then ought to leave Cobhurst; but they had not sense enough, and they stayed there. Then I saw that the situation was critical, and went to Barport myself, and sent the young man a telegram that would have aroused the heart of a feather-bed and made it be with me in three hours, but it did not rouse him and he did not come; and before that silly Mrs. Bannister got back with the two girls, the mischief was done, and that little Drane had taken advantage of the opportunity I had given her to trap Mr. Ralph. Oh, she is a sharp one! and with you and me to help her, she could do almost anything. You take off her rival, and I send away the interfering sister; and all she has to do is to snap up the young man, while her mother and that illustrious cook of yours stand by and clap their hands. But I do not give you much credit. You are merely an inconsiderate blunderer, to say no more. You did not plan anything; I did that, and when my plans don't work one way, they do in another. This one was like a boomerang that did not hit what it was aimed at, but came banging and clattering back all the same. And now I will remark that I have given up that sort of thing. I can throw as well as ever, but I am too old to stand the back-cracks."

"You are not too old for anything," said the doctor, "and you and I will do a lot of planning yet. But tell me one thing; do you think that this Haverley-Drane combination is going to deprive me of La Fleur?"

"Upon my word!" cried the old lady, springing to her feet, "never did I see a man so steeped in selfishness. Not a word of sympathy for me! In all this unfortunate affair, you think of nothing but the danger of losing your cook! Well, I am happy to say you are going to lose her. That will be your punishment, and well you deserve it. She will no more think of staying with you, after the Dranes set up housekeeping at Cobhurst, than I would think of coming to cook for you. And so you may go back to your soggy bread, and your greasy fries, and your dishwater coffee, and get yellow and green in the face, thin in the legs, and weak in the stomach, and have good reason to say to yourself that if you had let Miss Panney alone, and let her work out that excellent plan she had confided to you, you would have lived to a healthy old age, with the best cook in this part of the country making you happy three times a day, and satisfied with the world between meals."

"Deal gently with the erring," said the doctor. "Don't crush me. I want to go to Cobhurst this morning, to see them all, and find out my fate. Wouldn't you like to go with me? I have a visit to make, two or three miles above here, but I shall be back soon, and will drive you over. What do you say?"

"Very good," said Miss Panney. "I have been thinking of calling on the happy family."

As soon as the doctor had departed Miss Panney ordered her phaeton.

"I intended going to Cobhurst to-day," she said to herself, "but I do not propose to go with him. I shall get there first and see how the land lies, before he comes to muddle up things with his sordid anxieties about his future victuals and drink."



CHAPTER XLII

AN INTERVIEWER

The roan mare travelled well that morning, and Miss Panney was at Cobhurst before the doctor reached his patient's house. To her regret she found that Mrs. Drane and Miriam had driven to Thorbury. Miss Drane was upstairs at her work, and Mr. Haverley was somewhere on the place, but could easily be found. All this she learned from Mike, whom she saw outside.

"And where is the cook?"

"She's in the kitchen," said Mike.

"A good place for her," replied the old lady; "let her stay there. I will see Mr. Haverley, and I will see him out here. Go and find him and tell him I am sitting under that tree."

Ralph arrived, bright-eyed.

"Well, sir," cried the old lady, "and so you have decided to take a wife to yourself, eh?"

"Indeed I have," said he, with the air of one who had conquered a continent, and giving Miss Panney's outstretched hand a hearty shake.

"Sit down here," said she, "and tell me all about it. I suppose your soul is hungering for congratulations."

"Oh yes," he said, laughing; "they are the collateral delights which are next best to the main happiness."

"Now," said Miss Panney, "I suppose you feel quite certain that Miss Drane is a young woman who will suit your temperament and your general intellectual needs?"

"Indeed I do," cried Ralph. "She suits me in every possible way."

"And you have thoroughly investigated her character, and know that she has the well-balanced mind which will be very much wanted here, and that she has cut off and swept away all remnants of former attachments to other young men?"

Ralph twisted himself around impatiently.

"One moment," said Miss Panney, raising her hand. "And you are quite positive that she would have been willing to marry you if you had not owned this big farm; and that if you had had a dozen other girls to choose from, you still would have chosen her; and that you really think such a small person will appear well by the side of a tall fellow like you; and you are entirely convinced that you will never look around on other men's wives and wish that your wife was more like this one or that one; and that—"

"Miss Panney!" cried Ralph, "do you suppose there was ever a man in the world who thought about all those things when he really loved a woman?"

"No," said she, "I do not suppose there ever was one, and it was in the hope that such a one had at last appeared on earth that I put my questions to you."

"Well, I can answer them all in a bunch," said he; "she is exactly the wife I want, and nobody in the world would suit me as well. And if there is any one who does not think so—"

"Stop!" exclaimed Miss Panney; "your face is getting red. Never jump over a wall when there is a bottomless ditch on the other side. You might miss the ditch, but it is not likely. You are in love, and when people are that way, the straight back of a saw is parallel to every line of its teeth. Don't quarrel, and I will go on with my congratulations."

"Very queer ones they are so far, I am sure," replied Ralph, his face still flushed a little.

"Oh yes," said Miss Panney, rising, "there are a lot of queer things in this world, and I may be one of them. Now I will go and see your young lady. I do not know her very well yet, and I must make her better acquaintance."

"Miss Panney," said Ralph, quickly, "if you are going to stir her up with questions such as you put to me, I beg you will not see her."

"Boy, boy," said the old lady, "don't bubble and boil. I have a great regard for you, and care a great deal more for you than I do for her, and it is only people that I care a great deal for that I stir up. Go back to your grindstone, or whatever you were at work at, and do not worry your mind about your little Cicely. It may be that I shall like her enough to wish that I had made the match."

When Cicely accidentally met Ralph in the garden, a few hours later, she said to him that she could not have imagined that Miss Panney was such a dear old lady.

"Why, Ralph," said the girl, looking up at him with moistened eyes, "she talked to me so sweetly and gave me such good advice that I actually cried. And never before, dear Ralph, did good advice make me feel so happy that I had to cry."

And at this point the two wood doves, who had become regular detectives, actually pecked at each other in their despair of emulation.

Miss Panney's interview with Cicely had not been very long, because the old lady was anxious to see La Fleur before the doctor got there, and she went down into the kitchen, where, although she did not know it, the cook was expecting her. La Fleur's soul was in a state of turbulent triumph, but her expression was as soft as a dish of jelly.

Miss Panney sat down on the chair offered her, while the cook remained standing.

"I came down to ask you," said the old lady, "if you have heard whether Dr. Tolbridge and his wife have returned. I suppose you will be going back to them immediately."

"Oh no," said La Fleur, her eyes humbly directed toward the floor as she spoke, "at least not for a permanency. I shall get the doctor a good cook. I shall make it my business to see that she is a person fully capable of filling the position. I have my eyes on such a one. As for me, I shall stay here with my dear Miss Cicely."

"Good heavens, woman!" exclaimed Miss Panney, "your Miss Cicely isn't head of this house. What do you mean by talking in that way? Miss Haverley is mistress of this establishment. Haven't you sense enough to know that you are in her service, and that Miss Drane and her mother are merely boarders?"

Not a quiver or a shake was seen on the surface of the gentle jelly.

"Oh, of course," said La Fleur, with her head on one side, and her smile at its angle of humility, "I meant that I would come to her when she is settled here as Mrs. Haverley, and her dear mother is living with her, and when Miss Miriam has gone to finish her education at whatever seminary is decided on. Then this house will seem like my true home, and begging your pardon, madam, you cannot imagine how happy I am going to be."

"You!" exclaimed Miss Panney. "What earthly difference does it make to anybody whether you are happy or not?"

The jelly seemed to grow softer and more transparent.

"I am only a cook," said La Fleur, "but I can be as happy as persons of the highest quality, and I understand their natures very well, having lived with them. And words cannot tell you, madam, how it gladdens my old heart to think that I had so much to do myself with the good fortunes of us all, for the Dranes and me are a happy family now, and I hope may long be so, and hold together. I am sure I did everything that my humble mind could conceive, to give those two every chance of being together, and to keep other people away by discussing household matters whenever needed; for I had made up my mind that Miss Cicely and Mr. Haverley were born for each other, and if I could help them get each other, I would do it. When your telegram came, madam, it disturbed me, for I saw that it might spoil everything, by taking him away just at the time when they had nobody but each other for company, and when he was beginning to forget that he had ever been engaged to Miss Bannister, as you told me he was, madam, though I think you must have been a little mistaken, as we are all apt to be through thinking that things are as we want them to be. But I couldn't help feeling thankful that nobody but me was home when the telegram was brought without any envelope on it, and I had no chance to give it to him until it was too late to take a train that night; for the trouble the poor gentleman was in on account of his sister, being sure, of course, that something had happened to her, put him into such a doleful way that Miss Cicely gave herself up, heart and soul, to comfort him. And when a beautiful young woman does that for a young man, their hearts are sure to run together, like two eggs broken into one bowl. Now that's exactly what theirs did that night, for being so anxious about them I watched them and kept Mrs. Drane away. The very next morning when I asked her to go into the garden and pick some lettuce, and then told him where she was, he offered himself and was accepted. So you see, madam, that without boasting, or exalting myself above others, I may really claim that I made this match that I set my heart on. Although, to be sure—for I don't take away rightful credit from anybody—some of the credit is yours for having softened up their hearts with your telegram, just at the very moment when that sort of softening could be of the most use."

Miss Panney sat up very cold and severe.

"La Fleur," said she, "I thought you were a cook who prided herself on attending to her business. Since I have been sitting here, listening to your twaddle, the cat has been making herself comfortable in that pan of bread dough that you set by the fire to rise."

La Fleur turned around; her impulse was to seize a poker and rush at the cat. But she stood where she was and infused more benignity into her smile.

"Poor thing," said she, "she doesn't do any harm. There's a thick towel over the pan, and I should be ashamed of my yeast if it couldn't lift a cat."

When Miss Panney went upstairs she laughed. She did not want to laugh, but she could not help it. She had scarcely driven out of the gate when she met Dr. Tolbridge.

"A pretty trick you have played me!" he cried.

"Yes, indeed, a very pretty one," replied the old lady, pulling up her mare. "I thought you knew me better than to think that I would come here to look into this engagement business with you or anybody else. Or that I would let you get ahead of me, either. Well, I have got all the points I want, and more too, and now you can go along, and Mr. Ralph will tell you that he is the happiest man in the world, and your secretary will tell you that she is the happiest young woman, and the cook you are going to lose will vow that she is the happiest old woman, and if you stay until Mrs. Drane and Miriam come back, the one will tell you that she is the happiest middle-aged woman, and the other that she is the happiest girl, and if you give Mike a half dollar, he will tell you that he is the happiest negro in the world. Click!"

The doctor went on to Cobhurst, where Mrs. Drane and Miriam soon arrived, and he heard everything that Miss Panney told him he would hear.



CHAPTER XLIII

THE SIREN AND THE IRON

The summer, the Dranes, La Fleur, and Miriam had all left Cobhurst. The summer had gone south for an eight months' stay; the Dranes had gone to their old Pennsylvania home to settle up their affairs, and prepare for the marriage of the younger lady, which was to take place early in the coming spring; La Fleur had returned to the Tolbridges' to remain until the new Cobhurst household should be organized; and Miriam, whose association with Dora and Cicely had aroused her somewhat dormant aspirations in an educational direction, had gone to Mrs. Stone's school for the winter term.

November had come to Cobhurst, and there Ralph remained to get his farm ready for the winter, and his house in order for the bride who would come with the first young leaves. He did not regret this period of solitary bachelorhood, for not having very much money, he required a good deal of time to do what was to be done.

He had planned a good deal of refitting for the house, although not so much as to deprive it of any of those characteristics which made it dear old Cobhurst. And there were endless things to do on the farm, the most important of which, in his eyes, was the breaking of the pair of colts, which task he intended to take into his own hands. Mrs. Browning and the gig were very well in their places, but something more would be needed when the green leaves came.

Seraphina, Mike's sister, now ruled in the kitchen, but Ralph's thoughts had acquired such a habit of leaving the subject on which he was engaged and flying southward, that even when he took a meal with the Tolbridges, which happened not infrequently, he scarcely noticed the difference between their table and his own. Nothing stronger than this could be said regarding his present power of abstracting his mind from surrounding circumstances.

His income was a limited one, although it had been a good deal helped by the products of his farm, and he had to do a great deal of calculating with his pencil before he dared to order work which would oblige him to draw a check with his pen. But by thus giving two dollars' worth of thought to every dollar of expenditure, he made his money go a long way, and the lively and personal interest he took in every little improvement, made a garden fence to him of as much importance and satisfaction as a new post-office would have been to the people of Thorbury.

One day he went into a hardware store of the town to buy some nails, and there he met Miss Panney, who had just purchased a corkscrew.

"A thing you will not want for some time," she said, "for you do not look as if you needed anything to cheer your soul. Now tell me, young man, is it really the engagement rapture that has lasted all this time?"

"Oh, yes," said Ralph, laughing, "and besides that I have had all sorts of good fortune. For instance, one of my hens, setting unbeknown to anybody in a warm corner of the barn, has hatched out a dozen little chicks. Think of that at this season! I have put them in a warm room, and by the time we begin housekeeping we shall have spring chickens to eat before anybody else. And then there is that black colt, Dom Pedro. I had great doubts about him, because he showed such decided symptoms of free will, but now he is behaving beautifully. He has become thoroughly reconciled to a haycart. I have driven him in a light wagon with his sister, and he is just as good as she is, and yesterday I drove him single, and find that he has made up his mind to learn everything I can teach him. Now isn't that a fine thing?"

"Oh, yes," said Miss Panney, "it must be such things as those that make your eyes sparkle! But of course it warms your heart to give her delicate eating when she first comes to you, and to have a fine pair of horses for her to drive behind. If your face beams as it does now while she is away, it will serve as an electric light when she comes back. Good fortune! Oh, yes, of course, you consider that you have it in full measure. But we are sometimes apt to look on our friends' good fortune in an odd way. Now, if I had wanted you to go to Boston to get rich, and instead of that you had insisted on going to Nantucket, and had become rich there, I suppose that I should have been satisfied as long as you were prosperous, but I do not believe I would have been; at least, not entirely so. In this world we do want people to do what we think they ought to do."

"Yes," said Ralph, knowingly, "I see. But now, Miss Panney, don't you really think that Boston would have been too rich a place for me? That it would have expected too much of me, and that perhaps it would have done too much for me? Boston is a good enough place, but if you only knew how much lovelier Nantucket is—"

"Stop, stop, boy!" said the old lady. "I am getting so old now, that I am obliged to stop happy people and disappointed people from talking to me. If I listened to all they had to say, I should have no time for anything else. By the way, have you heard any news from the Bannister family? That sedate Herbert is going to be married, and he intends to live with his wife in the Bannister mansion."

"And how will his sister like that?" asked Ralph.

"She won't like it at all. She has told me she is going away."

"I am sorry for that," he said. "That is too bad."

"Not at all. She could not do better. A girl like that in a town such as Thorbury, with nobody to marry her but the rector, is as much out of place as a canary bird in a poultry yard. I have advised her to visit her relatives in town, and go with them to Europe, where I hope she will marry a prince. Good conscience! Look at her! Imagine that girl in a sweeping velvet robe with one great diamond blazing on her breast."

Ralph turned quickly, and as his eyes fell upon Dora, as she entered the store, it struck him that no royal gowns could make her more beautiful than she was at that moment.

"Now, my dear," said Miss Panney, "what did you come here for? Do you want a saw or a pitchfork?"

"I came," said Dora, with her most charming smile, "because I saw you two in here, and I wanted to speak to you. It is a funny place for this sort of thing, but I do not see either of you very often, now, and I thought I would like to tell you, before you heard it from any one else, of my engagement."

"To whom?" cried Miss Panney, in a voice that made the ox-chains rattle.

Dora looked around anxiously, but there was no one in the front part of the store.

"To Mr. Ames," she replied.

"The rector!" exclaimed Ralph.

"Yes," said Dora; "I want to write to Miriam about it, and do you know I have lost her address."

"Dora Bannister," interrupted Miss Panney, "it may be a little early to make bridal presents, but I want to give you this corkscrew. It is a very good one, and I think that after a while you will have need of it. Good morning."

When the old lady had abruptly departed, the two young people laughed, and Ralph offered his congratulations.

"I do not know Mr. Ames very well," he said, "but I have heard no end of good of him. But this is very surprising. It seems—"

"Seems what?" asked Dora.

"Well, since you ask me," Ralph answered, hesitating a little, "it seems odd, not, perhaps, that you should marry the rector, but that you should marry anybody. You appear to me too young to marry."

"Oh, indeed!" said Dora; "you think that?"

"I do not know that you understand me," said Ralph, "but I mean that you are so full of youth—and all that, and enjoy life so much, that it is a pity that you should not have more of youthful enjoyment before you begin any other kind."

Dora laughed.

"Truly," said she, "I never looked at the matter in that light. Perhaps I ought to have done so. You think me too young, and if you had had a chance, perhaps you would have warned me! You are so kind and so considerate, but don't you think you ought to speak to Mr. Ames about it? He does not know you very well, but he has heard no end of good of you, and perhaps what you say might make him reflect."

As she spoke she looked at him with her eyes not quite so wide open as usual. Ralph returned her gaze steadfastly.

"I know what you are thinking of," he said. "You are thinking of a fable with an animal in it and some fruit, and the animal was a small one, and the fruit was on a high trellis."

"Oh, dear," said Dora. "It must be very nice to have read as much as you have, and to know fables and all sorts of things to refer to. But my life hasn't been long enough for all that."

The more Ralph's mind dwelt upon the matter, the more dissatisfied did he feel that this beautiful young creature should marry the rector. If, in truth, she applied the fable to him, this was all the more reason why he should feel sorry for her. If anything of all this showed itself in his eyes, he did not know it, but Dora's eyes opened to their full width, and grew softer.

"I expect I surprise you," she said, "by talking to you of these things, but I have so few friends to confide in. Herbert is wrapped up in his own engagement, and Mrs. Bannister is entirely apart from me. Almost ever since I have known you two, I have felt that Miriam and you were friends with whom I could talk freely, and I am now going to tell you, and I know you will never mention it, that I do not believe I shall ever marry Mr. Ames."

"What!" exclaimed Ralph. "Didn't you say you were engaged to him?"

"Of course I said so; and I am, and I was very glad to be able to say it to Miss Panney, for she is always bothering me about such things; but the engagement is a peculiar one. Mr. Ames has been coming to see me for a long time, and I think it was because he heard that I was planning to go away that he decided to declare himself at once, before he lost his opportunity. I told him that I had never thought of anything of the sort; but he was very insistent, and at last I consented, provided the engagement should be a long one, and that, if after I had seen more of the world and knew myself better, I should decide to change my mind, I must be allowed to do so. He fought terribly against this, but there was nothing for him to do but agree, and so now we are engaged on approbation, as it were. This is a great relief to me in various ways, because I feel as if I were safely anchored, and not drifting about whichever way the wind blows, while other people are sailing where they want to; and yet, whenever I please, I can loosen my anchor, and spread my sails, and skim away over the beautiful sea."

It is seldom that a siren, leaning lightly against a bright new hay-cutter, with a background of iron rakes and hoes and spades, sings her soft song. But it was so now, and Dora, her heart beating quickly, looked from under her long lashes to note the effect of her words.

"If he will drop the little Drane," she said to herself, "I will drop the rector."

But Ralph stood looking past her. It was as plain as could be that he was not approaching the rocks; that he did not like the song; and that he was thinking what he should say about it.

"Oh, dear," said Dora, suddenly starting. "I have ever so much to do this morning, and it must be nearly noon. I wonder what made that queer Miss Panney think of giving me this corkscrew."

Ralph knew very well that the old lady meant the little implement as a figurative auxiliary of consolation, but he merely remarked that Miss Panney did and gave very queer things. He opened the door for her, and she bade him good-by and went out.

She crossed the street, and when on the opposite sidewalk, she turned her luminous eyes back upon the glass doors she had passed through.

But there was no one looking out after her. Ralph was standing at the counter, buying nails.



CHAPTER XLIV

LA FLEUR'S SOUL REVELS, AND MISS PANNEY PREPARES TO MAKE A FIRE

Cobhurst never looked more lovely than in the early June of the following year. With the beauty of the trees, the grass, the flowers, the vines, and all things natural, it possessed the added attractiveness of a certain personal equation. To all the happy dwellers therein, the dear old house appeared like one in which good people had always lived. Although they used to think that it was as charming as could be, they now perceived that the old mansion and all its surroundings had shown strong evidences of that system of management which Mike called ramshackle. No one said a word against any of the changes that Ralph had made, for in spite of them Cobhurst was still Cobhurst.

On a bench under a tree by the side of the house sat La Fleur, shelling some early spring peas, a tin basin of which she held in her lap. Mrs. Drane, in a rustic chair near by, was sewing, and Miriam, who had come laden with blossoms from the orchard, had stopped in the pleasant shade. Mike, absolutely picturesque in a broad new straw hat, was out in the sunshine raking some grass he had cut, and Seraphina, who remained in the household as general assistant, could be seen through the open window of the kitchen.

"As I told you before, madam," said La Fleur, "I don't think you need feel the least fear about the young horses. Their master has a steady hand, and they know his voice, and as for Mrs. Haverley, she's no more afraid of them than if they were two sheep. As they drove off this afternoon, I had a feeling as if I were living with some of those great families in the old country in whose service I have been. For, said I to myself, 'Here is the young master of the house, actually going to drive out with his handsome wife and his spirited horses, and that in the very middle of the working day, and without the prospect of making a penny of profit.' You don't see that often in this country, except, perhaps, among the very, very rich who don't have to work. But it is a good sign when a gentleman like Mr. Haverley sets such an upper-toned example to his fellow young men.

"I spoke of that to Dr. Tolbridge once. 'Begging your pardon, sir,' said I, 'it seems to me that you never drive out except when you have to.' 'Which is true,' said he, 'because I have to do it so much.' 'You will excuse me, sir, for saying so,' said I, 'but if you did things for pleasure sometimes, your mind would be rested, and you would feel more like comprehending the deliciousness of some of my special dishes, which I notice you now and again say nothing about, because you are so hungry when you eat them, you don't notice their savoriness.'"

"La Fleur," said Mrs. Drane, "I am surprised that you should have spoken to the doctor in that way."

"Oh, I have a mind," said La Fleur, "and I must speak it. My mind is like a young horse—if I don't use it, it gets out of condition; and I don't fear to speak to the doctor. He has brains, and he knows I have brains, and he understands me. He said something like that when I left him, and I am sure I never could have had a night's rest since if I hadn't put a good woman there in my place. With what Mary Woodyard knows already, and with me to pop in on her whenever I can coax Michael to drive me to town, the doctor should never have need for any of his own medicines, so far as digestion goes."

"Don't you think," interpolated Miriam, "that there is a great deal more said and done about eating than the subject is worth?"

Mrs. Drane looked a little anxiously at La Fleur, but the cook did not in the least resent the remark.

"You are young yet, Miss Miriam," she said; "but when you are older, you will think more of the higher branches of education, the very topmost of which is cookery. But it's not only young people, but a good many older ones, and some of them of high station, too, who think that cooking is not a fit matter for the intellect to work on. When I lived with Lady Hartleberry, she said over and over to my lord, and me too, that she objected to the art works I sent up to the table, because she said that the human soul ought to have something better to do than to give itself up to the preparation of dishes that were no better to sustain the body than if they had been as plain as a pike-staff. But I didn't mind her; and everything that Tolati or La Fleur ever taught me, and everything I invented for myself, I did in that house. My lady was an awfully serious woman, and very particular about public worship: and on Sunday morning she used to send the butler around to every servant with a little book, and in that he put down what church each one was going to, and at what time of day they would go. But when he came to me, I always said, 'La Fleur goes to church when she likes and where she chooses.' And the butler, being a man of brains, set down any church and time that happened to suit his fancy, and my lady was never the wiser; and if I felt like going to church, I went, and if I didn't, I didn't. But when the family went to their seat in Scotland, they did not take their butler with them, and the piper was sent round on Sunday morning to find out about the servants going to church. And when he came to me, I said the same thing I had always said, and do you know that pink-headed Scotchman put it down in the book and carried it to my lady. And when she read it, she was in a great rage, to be sure, and sent for me and wanted to know what I meant by such a message. Then I told her I meant no offence by it, and that I didn't think the idiot would put it down, but that I was too old to change my ways, and that if her ladyship wasn't willing that I should keep on in them, she would have to dismiss me. And then I curtsied and left her; and my lord, when he heard of it, got a new piper. 'For,' said he, 'a fool's a dangerous thing to have in the house,' and I stayed on two years. So you see, Miss Miriam, that we are getting to the point,—even my strait-laced lady made her opinions about church-going give way before high art in her cook. For, as much as she might say against my creations and compositions, she had gotten so used to 'em, she couldn't do without 'em."

"Well," said Miriam, "I suppose when the time comes I do not like everything as I do now, I shall care more for some things. But I mustn't sit here; I must go up to my sewing."

"Miriam!" exclaimed Mrs. Drane, "what on earth are you working at? Shutting yourself up, day after day, in your room, and at hours, too, when everything is so pleasant outside. Cannot you bring out here what you are doing?"

"No," said Miriam, "because it is a secret; but it is nearly finished, and as I shall have to tell you about it very soon, I may as well do it now: I have been altering Judith Pacewalk's teaberry gown for Cicely. It was altered once for me, and that makes it all the harder to make it fit her now. I am not very good at that sort of thing, and so it has taken me a long time. I expected to have it ready for her when she came back from the wedding trip, but I could not do it. I shall finish it to-day, however, and to-morrow I am going to invest her with it. She is now the head of the house, and it is she who should wear the teaberry gown. Don't tell her, please, until to-morrow; I thought it would be nice to have a little ceremony about it, and in that case I shall have to have some one to help me."

"It is very good of you, my dear," said Mrs. Drane, "to think of such a thing, and Cicely and your brother will be delighted, I know, to find out what you think of this change of administration. Ralph said to me the other day that he was afraid you were not altogether happy in yielding your place to another. He had noticed that you had gotten into the habit of going off by yourself."

Miriam laughed.

"Just wait until he hears the beautiful speech I am going to make to-morrow, and then he will see what a wise fellow he is."

"Mrs. Drane! Miss Miriam!" exclaimed La Fleur, her face beginning to glow with emotion; "let me help to make this a grand occasion. Let me get up a beautiful lunch. There isn't much time, it is true, but I can do it. I'll make Michael drive me to town early in the morning, and I'll have everything ready in time. A dinner would be all very well, but a luncheon gives so much better chance to the imagination and the intellect. There're some things you have to have at a dinner, but at a lunch there is nothing you are obliged to have, and nothing you may not have if you want it. And if you don't mind, I'd like you to ask old Miss Panney. I've been a good deal at odds with her since I have known her, but I'm satisfied now, and if there is anything I can do to make her satisfied, I'm more than ready. Besides, when I do get up anything extraordinary in the way of a meal, I like to have people at the table who can appreciate it. And as for that, I haven't met anybody in this country who is as well grounded in good eating as that old lady is."

Her proposition gladly agreed to, La Fleur rose to a high heaven of excited delight. She had had no chance to show her skill in a wedding breakfast, for the young couple had been married very quietly in Pennsylvania, and she was now elated with the idea of exhibiting her highest abilities in an Investiture Luncheon.

She handed the basin of peas through the open window to Seraphina, and retired to her room, to study, to plan, and to revel in flights of epicurean fancy.

"Mike," said Seraphina to her brother, who was now raking the grass near the kitchen window, "did you hear dat ar ole cook a talkin' jes' now?"

"No," said Mike, "I hain't got no time to harken to people talkin', 'cept they're talkin' to me, an' it 'pends on who they is whether I listens then or not."

"That fool thinks she made this world," said Seraphina. "I've been thinkin' she had some notion like dat. She do put on such a'rs."

"Git out," said Mike. "You never heard her say nothing like that."

"I didn't hear all she said," replied the colored woman, "but I heard more'n 'nough, an' I heard her talkin' about her creation. Her creation indeed! I'll let her know one thing; she didn't make me."

"Now look a here, Seraphiny," said Mike; "the more you shet up now, now you's in the prime of life, the gooder you'll feel when you gits old. An' so long as Mrs. Flower makes them thar three-inch-deep pies for me, I don't care who she thinks she made, an' who she thinks she didn't make. Thar now, that's my opinion."

* * * * *

The Investiture Luncheon, at which the Tolbridges and Miss Panney were present, was truly a grand and beautiful affair, to which Dora would certainly have been invited had she not been absent on her bridal trip with Mr. Ames. Seldom had La Fleur or either of her husbands prepared for prince, ambassador, or titled gourmand a meal which better satisfied the loftiest outreaches of the soul in the truest interests of the palate.

Cicely appeared in the teaberry gown, and if the spirit of Judith Pacewalk hovered o'er the scene, and allowed its gaze to wander from the charming bride, over the happy faces of the rest of the company, to the half-open door of the dining-room, where shone the radiant face of the proudest cook in the world, it must have been as well satisfied with the fate of the pink garment as it could possibly expect to be.

It was late in the afternoon when the luncheon party broke up, and although Miss Panney was the last guest to leave, she did not go home, but drove herself to Thorbury, and tied her roan mare in front of the office of Mr. Herbert Bannister. When the young lawyer looked up and perceived his visitor, he heaved a sigh, for he had expected in a few moments to lock up his desk, and stop, on his way home, at the house of his lady love. But the presence of Miss Panney at his office meant business, and business with her meant a protracted session. Miss Panney did not notice the sigh, and if she had, it would not have affected her. Her soul had been satisfied this day, and no trifle could disturb her serenity.

"Now what I want," said she, after a good deal of prefatory remark, "is for you to give me my will. I want to alter it."

"But, madam," said young Bannister, when he had heard the alterations desired by Miss Panney, "is not this a little quixotic? Excuse me for saying so. Mr. Haverley is not even related to you, and you are bestowing upon him—"

"Herbert Bannister," said the old lady, "if you were your father instead of yourself, you would know that this young man ought to have been my grandson. He isn't; but I choose to consider him as such, and as such I shall leave him what will make him a worthy lord of Cobhurst. Bring me the new will as soon as it is ready and bring also the old one, with all the papers I have given you, from time to time, regarding the disposition of my property. I shall burn them, every one, and although it may set the Wittons' chimney on fire the conflagration will make me happy."

THE END