"Some things concern all of us," retorted Miss Panney. "Suppose Bishop White, when he was ordained and came back to this country, had found a little village--"

Her remarks were stopped by a dish of salad. The young and tender leaves of lettuce were half concealed by a mayonnaise dressing.

"This makes three dollars," thought Miss Panney, as she helped herself, "for Kipper never makes any difference, even if you send your own lettuce to be dressed." And then she went on talking about Bishop White, and what he would have thought of a little cathedral in every country town.

"But the Methodists do not have cathedrals," said Mrs. Tolbridge.

"Which makes it all the worse when they try to build their meeting-houses to look like them," replied the old lady.

It was a long time since Miss Panney had tasted any mayonnaise dressing as good as this. But she remembered that the strawberries were to come, and did not help herself again to salad.

"If one of the old Methodist circuit-riders," she said, "after toiling over miles of weary road in the rain or scorching sun, and preaching sometimes in a log meeting-house, sometimes in a barn, and often in a private house, should suddenly come upon--"

The imaginary progress of the circuit-rider was brought to a stop by the arrival of the last course of the luncheon. From a pretty gla.s.s dish uprose a wondrous structure. Within an encircling wall of delicate, candied tracery was heaped a little mound of creamy frost, the sides of great strawberries showing here and there among the veins and specks of crimson juice.

Miss Panney raised her eyes from this creation to the face of her hostess.

"Kitty," said she, "is this the doctor's birthday?"

"No," answered Mrs. Tolbridge, with a smile; "he was born in January."

"Yours then, perhaps?"

Mrs. Tolbridge shook her head.

"A dollar and a half," thought the old lady, "and perhaps more. Five dollars at the very least for the meal. If the doctor makes that much between meals, day in and day out, she ought to be thankful."

The dainty concoction to which the blazing-eyed old lady now applied herself was something she had never before tasted, and she became of the opinion that Kipper would not get up a dish of that sort, and so much of it, for less than two dollars.

"There was a Methodist preacher," she said, spoonful after spoonful of the cold and fruity concoction melting in her mouth as she spoke, "a regular apostle of the poor, named Lorenzo Dow. How I would like to have him here. He was a man who would let people know in trumpet tones, by day and by night, what he thought of wicked, wasteful prodigality, no matter how pleasant it might be, how easy it might be, or how proper in people who could afford it. Is there to be anything more, Kitty Tolbridge?"

The doctor's wife could not restrain a little laugh.

"No," she said, "there is to be nothing more, unless you will take a little tea."

Miss Panney pushed back her chair and looked at her hostess. "Tea after a meal like that! I should think not. If you had had champagne during the luncheon, and coffee afterwards, I shouldn't have been surprised."

"I did not order coffee," said Mrs. Tolbridge, "because we don't take it in the middle of the day, but--"

"You ordered quite enough," said her visitor, severely; "and I will say this for Kipper, that he never got up a better meal, although--"

"Kipper!" interrupted Mrs. Tolbridge. "Kipper had nothing to do with this luncheon. It was prepared by my new cook. It is the first meal she has given us, and I am so sorry the doctor could not be here to eat it."

Miss Panney rose from her chair, and gazed earnestly at Mrs. Tolbridge.

"What cook?" she asked, in her deepest tones.

"Jane La Fleur," was the reply; "the woman you urged me to write to. I sent the letter that afternoon. Yesterday she came to see me, and I engaged her. And while we were at breakfast this morning, she arrived with her boxes, and went to work."

"And she cooked that meal? She herself made all those things?"

"Yes," said Mrs. Tolbridge, "she even churned the b.u.t.ter and made the biscuit. She says she is going to do a great deal better than this when she gets things in order."

"Better than this!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Miss Panney. "Do you mean to say, Kitty Tolbridge, that this sort of thing is going to happen three times a day?

What have you done? What sort of a creature is she? Tell me all about it this very minute."

Mrs. Tolbridge led the way to the parlor, and the two sat down.

"Now," said the doctor's wife, "suppose you finish what you were saying about the Methodist church, then--"

Miss Panney stamped her foot.

"Don't mention them!" she cried. "Let them build tower on tower, spire on spire, crypts, picture galleries, altars, confessionals, if they like.

Tell me about your new cook."

"It will take a long time to tell you all about her, at least all she told me," said Mrs. Tolbridge, "for she talked to me more than an hour this morning, working away all the time. Her name is Jane La Fleur, but she does not wish any one to call her Jane. She would like the family to use her last name, and the servants can do the same, or call her 'madam.'

She is the widow of two chefs, one a Florentine, named Tolati, and the other a Frenchman, La Fleur. She acted as 'second' to each of these, and in that way has thoroughly learned the art of Italian cooking, as well as the French methods. She herself is English, and she has told me about some of the great families she and her husbands lived with."

"Kitty," said Miss Panney, "I should think she was trying to impose upon you with a made-up story; but after that luncheon I will believe anything she says about her opportunities. How in the world did you get such a woman to come to you?"

"Oh, the whole business of engaging her was very simple," answered Mrs. Tolbridge. "Her last husband left her some money, and she came to this country on a visit to relatives, but she loved her art so much, she said--"

"Did she call it art?" asked Miss Panney.

"Yes, she did--that she felt she must cook, and she lived for some time with a family named Drane, in Pennsylvania, with whom the doctor used to be acquainted. She had a letter from them which fully satisfied me.

On her part she said she would be content with the salary I paid my last cook."

"Did she call it salary?" exclaimed the old lady.

"That was the word she used," answered Mrs. Tolbridge, "and as I said before, the only question she asked was whether or not my husband was in trade."

"What did that matter?" asked the other.

"It seemed to matter a great deal. She said she had never yet lived with a tradesman, and never intended to. She was with Mrs. Drane, the widow of a college professor, for several months, and when the family found they could no longer afford to keep a servant who could do nothing but cook, La Fleur returned to her relatives, and looked for another position; but not until I came, she said, had any one applied who was not in trade."

"She must be an odd creature," said Miss Panney.

"She is odder than odd," was the answer. At this moment the maid came in and told Mrs. Tolbridge that the madam cook wanted to see her. The lady of the house excused herself, and in a few minutes returned, smiling.

"She wished to tell me," 'said she, "before my visitor left, that the name of the 'sweet' which she gave us at luncheon is _la promesse_, being merely a promise of what she is going to do, when she gets about her everything she wants."

"Kitty Tolbridge," said Miss Panney, solemnly, "whatever happens, don't mind that woman's oddity. Keep your mind on her cooking, and don't consider anything else. She is an angel, and she belongs to the very smallest cla.s.s of angels that visit human beings. You may find, by the dozen, philanthropists, kind friends, helpers and counsellors, the most loving and generous; but a cook like that in a Thorbury family is as rare as--as--as--I can't think of anything so rare. I came here, Kitty, to find out if you had written to that woman, and now to discover that the whole matter has been settled in two days, and that the doors of Paradise have been opened to Dr. Tolbridge--for you know, Kitty, that the Garden of Eden was truly Paradise until they began to eat the wrong things--I feel as if I had been a.s.sisting at a miracle."

CHAPTER X

A SILK GOWN AND A BOTTLE