easily
get rid of him when all these people are gone."

"Get rid of who?"

"I was going to say, my lady--if your ladyship would consent to have a
man cook for a time, just to try."

"Then I never will, Griffiths: there'd be no peace in the house with
him!"

"Well, your ladyship knows best, in course; only if you thought well
of trying it, of course you needn't keep the man; and I know there's
Murray in Dublin, that was cook so many years to old Lord Galway. I
know he's to be heard of at the hotel in Grafton Street."

"I can't bear the thoughts of a man cook, Griffiths: I'd sooner have
three women cooks, and I'm sure one's enough to plague anybody."

"But none's worse, my lady," said Griffiths.

"You needn't tell me that. I wonder, Selina, if I were to write to my
sister, whether she could send me over anything that would answer?"

"What, from London, my lady?" answered Griffiths--"You'd find a London
woman cook sent over in that way twice worse than any man: she'd be
all airs and graces. If your ladyship thought well of thinking about
Murray, Richards would do very well under him: she's a decent poor
creature, poor woman--only she certainly is not a cook that'd suit for
such a house as this; and it was only impudence her thinking to attempt
it."

"But, mamma," said Lady Selina, "do let me know to whom I am to write,
and then you and Griffiths can settle about the cook afterwards; the
time is so very short that I ought not to lose a post."

The poor countess threw herself back in her easy chair, the picture of
despair. Oh, how much preferable were rolls of worsted and yards of
netting, to the toils and turmoil of preparing for, and entertaining
company! She was already nearly overcome by the former: she didn't dare
to look forward to the miseries of the latter. She already began to
feel the ill effects of her son's reformation, and to wish that it had
been postponed just for a month or two, till she was a little more
settled.

"Well, mamma," said Lady Selina, as undisturbed and calm as ever, and
as resolved to do her duty without flinching, "shall we go on?"

The countess groaned and sighed--"There's the list there, Selina, which
your father put down in pencil. You know the people as well as I do:
just ask them all--"

"But, mamma, I'm not to ask them all to stay here:--I suppose some are
only to come to dinner?--the O'Joscelyns, and the Parchments?"

"Ask the O'Joscelyns for Wednesday and Thursday: th