ed slowly towards the back door. Returning a moment later,
she folded her arms, and continued tentatively: "The grocer'll be next.
I ordered in the usuals yesterday--but there'll be a few extras.--I
wanted to ask, 'Um, if you allowed lard?"

"Madam," corrected Grizel sweetly, and pursed her lips, as though in
deliberation. To herself she was declaiming desperately: "Now may the
powers preserve me, ... one slip, and I am undid! What on earth does
she mean by cornering me like this? I must temporise, and lure her on."
... She stroked her nose, and said judicially:

"Of course--it depends!"

"Most ladies do," affirmed the cook. "If they're particular. It's
difficult to get it the same with dripping."

Grizel had a flash of inspiration. Lard was the superlative, dripping
the positive; naturally, then, all plain cooks angled for the former,
and all British Matrons insisted on the latter. She put on a severe air
and said firmly:

"Not if your pans are perfectly clean!" and was so overjoyed at her own
aptness, that she was ready to allow anything under the sun.
Nevertheless, the detective instinct having been born in her heart, she
was resolved, as she mentally phrased it, to track lard to the death.

Cook was staring open-eyed, a faint misgiving mingled with the former
complaisance. When a mistress began talking of keeping pans clean, she
was not so green as had been expected! Her lips set in obstinate
fashion.

"Some ladies," she said, "are so fussy about the colour. You can't help
getting it darker with dripping."

Grizel felt hopelessly that she had lost the scent. It was a desperate
position, face to face with her enemy, defenceless, yet aware that an
instant's failure must lead to wholesale debacle. "I can't tackle her
alone," she told herself desperately. "I must--I must have a
confederate!" and throwing principle to the winds, in a flash of thought
she created a fictitious Emily, and wove around her a suitable family
history. Faithful servant, perfect cook, expert dripping-er, rent by
marriage from a sorrowing mistress, now slumbering in a village grave!
With a voice imbued with the sacredness of the remembrance, she
pronounced firmly: "Emily did! She _always_ got it white."

"Oh, _rolled_!" cried the cook. The corners of her lips gave a slight
expressive twitch before she added in automatic fashion. "Yes, 'Um--
Madam,--I quite understand." She crossed the floor and took down a
slate from