"The ladies upstairs," said La Fleur, "have been accustomed to fresh rolls every morning for their breakfast."

"An' afther this, they shall have 'em," said Molly, "Sundays an' weekday, an' sorry I am that I didn't know before that they was used to have 'em."

"How do you make your coffee?" asked La Fleur.

Molly looked at her hesitatingly.

"I am very keerful about that," she said. "I niver let it bile too much--"

"Ugh!" exclaimed La Fleur, raising her hand. "Tell your mistress to get you a French coffee-pot, and if you don't know how to use it, I'll come and teach you. I shall be here off and on as long as Mrs. Drane stops in this house." And then, seating herself, La Fleur proceeded to put Molly through an elementary domestic service examination.

"Well," said the examiner, when she had finished, "I think you must be the worst cook in this part of the country."

"No, mum, I'm not," said Molly. "There was one here afore me, a nager woman named Phoebe, that must have been worse, from what I'm told."

"Where I have lived," said La Fleur, "they have such women to cook for the farm laborers."

"Beggin' your pardon, mum," said Molly, "that's what they are here, or th' same thing. Mr. Haverley, he works on the farm with a pitchfork, jest like the nager man."

"Don't talk to me like that!" exclaimed La Fleur. "Mr. Haverley is a gentleman. I have lived enough among gentlemen to know them when I see them, and they can work and they can play and they can do what they please, and they are gentlemen still. Don't you ever speak that way, again, of your master."

"I thought I had heard, mum," said Molly, "that you looked down on tradespeople and the loike."

"Tradespeople!" said the other, scornfully. "A gentleman farmer is very different from a person in trade; but I can't expect anything better from a woman who boils coffee, and never heard of bouillon. But remember the things I have told you, and thank your stars that a cook as high up in the profession as I am is willing to tell you anything. Are you the only servant in this house?"

"There's a man by the name of Mike," said Molly, "a nager, though you wouldn't think it from his name. He helps me sometimes, an' he helps iverybody else other times."

"Is that the man?" said La Fleur, looking out of the window.

"That's him, mum," said Molly; "he's jest goin' to the woodpile with his axe."

"I wish to speak to him," said La Fleur, and with a very slight nod of the head she left the kitchen by the door that led into the grounds.

Looking after her, Molly exclaimed,--

"Drat you, for a stuck-up, cross-grained, meddlin', b.u.mble-bee-backed old hag of a soup-slopper; to come stickin' yer big nose into other people's kitchens! If there was a rale misthress to the house instead of the little gal upstairs, you'd be rowled down the front steps afore you'd been let come into my kitchen." And with this she returned to her potatoes.

La Fleur stopped at the woodpile, as if in pa.s.sing she had happened to notice a good man splitting logs. In her blandest voice she accosted Mike and bade him good-day.

"I think you must be Michael," she said. "The cook has been speaking of you to me. My name is La Fleur."

Mike, who had struck his axe into a log, touched his flattened hat.

"Yes, mum," he said; "Mr. Griffing has been tellin' me that. Are you lookin' for any of the folks?"

"Oh no, no," said La Fleur; "I am just walking about to see a little of this beautiful place. You don't mind that, do you, Michael? You keep everything in such nice order. I haven't seen your garden, but I know it is a fine one, because I saw some of the vegetables that came out of it."

Mike grinned. "I reckon it ain't the same kind of a garden that you've been used to, mum. I've heerd that you cooked for Queen Victoria."

"Oh no, no," said La Fleur, dropping her head on one side so that her smile made a slight angle with the horizon; "I never cooked for the queen, no indeed; but I have lived with high families, lords, ladies, and amba.s.sadors, and I don't remember that any of them had better potatoes than I saw to-day. Is this a large farm, Michael?"

"It's considerable over a hundred acres, though I don't 'xactly know how much. Not what you'd call big, and not what you'd call little."

"But you grow beautiful crops on it, I don't doubt," remarked La Fleur.

"Can't say about that," said Mike, shaking his head a little. "I 'spects we'll git good 'nough c.r.a.ps for what we do for 'em. This ain't the kind of farm your lords and ladies has got. It's ramshackle, you know."

"Ramshackle?" repeated La Fleur. "Is that a sort of sheep farm?"

Mike grinned. "Law, no, we ain't got no sheep, and I'm glad of it.

Ramshackle farmin' means takin' things as you find 'em, an' makin' 'em do, an' what you git you've got, but with tother kind of farmin' most times what you git, ye have to pay out, an' then you ain't got nuthin'."

This was more than La Fleur could comprehend, but she inferred in a general way that Mr. Haverley's farm was a profitable one.

"All so pretty, so pretty," she said, looking from side to side; "such a grand barn, and such broad acres. Is it the estate as far as I can see?"

"Yes, mum," said Mike, "an' a good deal furder. The woods cuts it off down thataway."

"It is a lordly place," said La Fleur, "and it does you honor, Michael, for the cook told me you were Mr. Haverley's head man."

"I reckon she's about right there," said Mike.

"And I am very glad indeed," continued the old woman, "that Mrs. and Miss Drane are living here. And now, Michael, if either of them is ever taken ill, and you're sent for the doctor, I want you to come straight to me, and I'll see that he goes to them. If you knock at the back door of the kitchen, I'll hear you, whether I am awake or asleep. And when you are coming to town, Michael, you must drop in and see me. I can give you a nice bit of a lunch, any day. I daresay you like good things to eat as well as any-body."

Mike stood silent for a moment, and his eyes began to brighten.

"Indeed I do, mum," said he. "If I was to carry in a punkin to you when they're ripe, I wonder if you'd be willin' to make me a punkin pie, same kind as Queen Victoria has in the fall of the year."

La Fleur beamed on him most graciously.

"I will do that gladly, Michael: you may count on me to do that. And I will give you other things that you like. Wait till we see, wait till we see. Good-day, Michael; I must be going now, or the doctor will be kept waiting for his dinner. Where's my cabby?"

"Mr. Griffing has drove round to the front of the house, mum," said Mike.

"Just like the stupid American," muttered the old woman as she hurried away, "as if I'd get in at the front of the house."

Andy Griffing talked a good deal on the drive back to Thorbury, but La Fleur heard little and answered less. She was in a state of great mental satisfaction, and during her driver's long descriptions of persons and places, she kept saying to herself, "It couldn't be better than that. It couldn't be better than that."

This mental expression she applied to Mr. Haverley, whom she considered an extraordinarily fine-looking young man; to the broad acres and fine barn; to the fact that the Dranes were living with him; to the probability that he would fall in love with the charming Miss Cicely, and make her mistress of the estate; and to the strong possibility, that should this thing happen, she herself would be the cook of Cobhurst, and help her young mistress put the establishment on the footing that her station demanded.

"It couldn't be better than that," she muttered over and over again as she busied herself about the Tolbridge dinner, and she even repeated the expression two or three times after she went to bed.

CHAPTER XXVIII

THE GAME IS CALLED