e are waiting for you. There is the nicest
pudding for dinner that we have had for ever so long, but daddy says we
mustn't begin it till you all come. Oh, _do_ make haste."

Irene came flying down the stairs. "I am so sorry to be so long," she
cried apologetically, "the string of my apron got into a knot, and I
really began to think I should have to wear it at dinner."

"I am late, and have no excuse," thought Audrey dejectedly. "I never have
one."

"I shall be glad to see anyone, no matter what they are wearing," said Mr.
Carlyle, coming to the door. "Who is that talking of kitchen aprons?"

Irene looked at him with merry eyes laughing above her flushed cheeks.
"Please, sir, it's the new cook," she said, dropping him a curtsey.

CHAPTER XII.

"Ugh! how horrid they feel! I think that is the very worst part of
dish-washing, don't you, Irene?"

Audrey sat in a kitchen chair with her hands held out stiffly before her.
She had just washed all the beautiful things, and Irene had wiped them.
Now, after wiping out the dish-pan, and spreading the dish-cloth to dry,
she had sat down while she dried her hands on the runner. She was tired,
and her feet ached; the weather was hot, and she had been busy ever since
she had got up.

For more than a fortnight now, she and Irene had inaugurated a new state
of affairs at the Vicarage, and, to her surprise, she found that she was
growing to enjoy the work. She certainly enjoyed the results, and felt
proud of them. And, oh, how proud and happy she was when her father
remarked on the improvement.

There were disagreeables too; there was no denying the fact. And one of
them was the uncomfortable roughness of her hands.

"Rub them with salt," advised Irene, briskly, as she hung the shining jugs
and cups on their hooks on the dressers. "Then rub some cold cream or
glycerine into them."

"But I don't keep a chemist's shop," laughed Audrey. "I have only a
little glycerine."

"Well, that is splendid if it suits you. Rub some into your hands while
they are wet, and then rinse it off again. When I have my own little
house I shall have a shelf put up close to where I wash my dishes, and
vases, and things----"

"Close by the tap, and the sink, and the draining-board," interrupted
Audrey, eyeing their own.

"Yes, close by, and I shall keep on it a bottle of glycerine, a cake of
pumice soap, some lemon and glycerine mixed, and--oh, one or two other
things that I sh