said Norah, pirouetting gently. "Now, shall we go and see the horses?"

They spent a blissful half-hour in the stables, and arranged to ride in the afternoon--the old coachman was plainly delighted at the absence of a chauffeur, and displayed his treasures with a pride to which he had long been a stranger.

"The 'orses 'aven't 'ad enough to do since Sir John used to come," he said. "The General didn't care for them--an infantry gent he must have been--and it was always the motor for 'im. We exercised 'em, of course, but it ain't the same to the 'orses, and don't they know it!"

"Of course they do." Norah caressed Killaloe's lean head.

"You'll hunt him, sir, won't you, this season?" asked Jones anxiously.

"The meets ain't what they was, of course, but there's a few goes out still. The Master's a lady--Mrs. Ainslie; her husband's in France.

He's 'ad the 'ounds these five years."

"Oh, we'll hunt, won't we, Dad?" Norah's face glowed as she lifted it.

"Rather!" said Jim. "Of course you will. What about the other horses, Jones? Can they jump?"

"To tell you the truth, sir," said Jones happily, "there's not one of them that can't. Even the cobs ain't too bad; and the black pony that's at the vet.'s, 'e's a flyer. 'E'll be 'ome to-morrow; the vet.

sent me word yesterday that 'is shoulder's all right. Strained it a bit, 'e did. Of course they ain't made hunters, like Killaloe; but they're quick and clever, and once you know the country, and the short cuts, and the gaps, you can generally manage to see most of a run."

He sighed ecstatically. "Eh, but it'll be like old times to get ready again on a hunting morning!"

The gong sounded from the house, and they bade the stables a reluctant good-bye. Lunch waited in the morning-room; there was a pleasant sparkle of silver and gla.s.s on a little table in the window. And there was no doubt that Miss de Lisle could cook.

"If her temper were as good as her pastry, I should say we had found a treasure," said Mr. Linton, looking at the fragments which remained of a superlative apple-pie. "Let's hope that Mrs. Moroney will discover a kitchenmaid or two, and that they will induce her to overlook our other shortcomings."

"I'm afraid we'll never be genteel enough for her," said Norah, shaking her curly head. "And the other servants will all hate her because she thinks they aren't fit for her to speak to. If she only knew how much nicer Allenby is!"

"Or Brownie," said Wally loyally. "Brownie could beat that pie with one hand tied behind her."

Allenby entered--sympathy on every line of his face.

"The 'ousekeeper--Mrs. Atkins--would like to see you, sir. Or Miss Linton. And so would Miss de Lisle."

But Miss de Lisle was on his heels, breathing threatenings and slaughter.

"There must be some arrangement made as to my instructions," she boomed. "Your housekeeper evidently does not understand my position.

She has had the impertinence to address me as 'Cook.' Cook!" She paused for breath, glaring.

"But, good gracious, isn't it your profession?" asked Mr. Linton.

Miss de Lisle fairly choked with wrath. Wally's voice fell like oil on a stormy sea.

"If I could make a pie like that I'd _expect_ to be called 'Cook,'"

said he. "It's--it's a regular poem of a pie!" Whereat Jim choked in his turn, and endeavoured, with signal lack of success, to turn his emotion into a sneeze.

Miss de Lisle's lowering countenance cleared somewhat. She looked at Wally in a manner that was almost kindly.

"War-time cookery is a makeshift, not an art," she said. "Before the war I could have shown you what cooking could be."

"That pie wasn't a makeshift," persisted Wally. "It was a dream. I say, Miss de Lisle, can you make pikelets?"

"Yes, of course," said the cook-lady. "Do you like them?"

"I'd go into a trap for a pikelet," said Wally, warming to his task.

"Oh, Norah, do ask Miss de Lisle if she'll make some for tea!"

"Oh, do!" pleaded Norah. As a matter of stern fact, Norah preferred bread-and-b.u.t.ter to pikelets, but the human beam in the cook-lady's eye was not to be neglected. "We haven't had any for ages." She cast about for further encouragement for the beam. "Miss de Lisle, I suppose you have a very special cookery-book?"

"I make my own recipes," said the cook-lady with pride. "But for the war I should have brought out my book."

"By Jove, you don't say so!" said Jim. "I say, Norah, you'll have to get that when it comes out."

"Rather!" said Norah. "I wonder would it bother you awfully to show me some day how to make meringues? I never can get them right."

"We'll see," said Miss de Lisle graciously. "And would you really like pikelets for tea?"

"Please--if it wouldn't be too much trouble."

"Very well." Jim held the door open for the cook-lady as she marched out. Suddenly she paused.

"You will see the housekeeper, Mr. Linton?"

"Oh, certainly!" said David Linton hastily. The door closed; behind it they could hear a tread, heavy and martial, dying away.

"A fearsome woman!" said Mr. Linton. "Wally, you deserve a medal!

But are we always to lick the ground under the cook's feet in this fashion?"

"Oh, she'll find her level," said Jim. "But you'd better tell Mrs.

Atkins not to offend her again. Talk to her like a father, Dad--say she and Miss de Lisle are here to run the house, not to bother you and Norah."

"It's excellent in theory," said his father sadly, "but in practice I find my tongue cleaving to the roof of my mouth when these militant females tackle me. And if you saw Mrs. Atkins you would realize how difficult it would be for me to regard her as a daughter. But I'll do my best."

Mrs. Atkins, admitted by the sympathetic Allenby, proved less fierce than the cook-lady, although by no stretch of imagination could she have been called pleasant.

"I have never worked with a cook as considered herself a lady," she remarked. "It makes all very difficult, and no kitchen-maid, and am I in authority or am I not? And such airs, turning up her nose at being called Cook. Which if she is the cook, why not be called so? And going off to her bedroom with her dinner, no one downstairs being good enough to eat with her. I must say it isn't what I'm used to, and me lived with the first families. _Quite_ the first." Mrs. Atkins ceased her weary monologue and gazed on the family with conscious virtue. She was dressed in dull black silk, and looked overwhelmingly respectable.

"Oh, well, you must put up with things as they are," said Mr. Linton vaguely. "Miss de Lisle expects a few unusual things, but apparently there is no doubt that she can do her work. I hope to have more maids in a few days; if not"--a brilliant idea striking him--"I must send you up to London to find us some, Mrs. Atkins."

"I shall be delighted, sir," replied the housekeeper primly. "And do I understand that the cook is to have a separate sitting-room?"

"Oh, for goodness' sake, ask Allenby!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed her employer. "It will have to be managed somewhere, or we shall have no cook!"

CHAPTER V

HOW THE COOK-LADY FOUND HER LEVEL

Two days later, the morning mail brought relief--not too soon, for there was evidence that the battle between the housekeeper and the cook-lady could not be much longer delayed, and Sarah was going about with a face of wooden agony that gave Norah a chilly feeling whenever she encountered her. Allenby alone retained any cheerfulness; and much of that was due to ancient military discipline. Therefore Mrs.