She seemed a
bit worried.

"I hope people won't get talking," she says. "He would insist on my
coming."

"Well," I says, "surely a gent can bring his cook along with him to
cook for him. And as for people talking, what I always say is, one may
just as well give them something to talk about and save them the
trouble of making it up."

"If only I was a plain, middle-aged woman," she says, "it would be all
right."

"Perhaps you will be, all in good time," I says, but, of course, I
could see what she was driving at. A nice, clean, pleasant-faced young
woman she was, and not of the ordinary class. "Meanwhile," I says, "if
you don't mind taking a bit of motherly advice, you might remember that
your place is the kitchen, and his the parlour. He's a dear good man,
I know, but human nature is human nature, and it's no good pretending
it isn't."

She and I had our breakfast together before he was up, so that when he
came down he had to have his alone, but afterwards she comes into the
kitchen and closes the door.

"He wants to show me the way to High Wycombe," she says. "He will have
it there are better shops at Wycombe. What ought I to do?"

My experience is that advising folks to do what they don't want to do
isn't the way to do it.

"What d'you think yourself?" I asked her.

"I feel like going with him," she says, "and making the most of every
mile."

And then she began to cry.

"What's the harm!" she says. "I have heard him from a dozen platforms
ridiculing class distinctions. Besides," she says, "my people have
been farmers for generations. What was Miss Bulstrode's father but a
grocer? He ran a hundred shops instead of one. What difference does
that make?"

"When did it all begin?" I says. "When did he first take notice of you
like?"

"The day before yesterday," she answers. "He had never seen me
before," she says. "I was just 'Cook'--something in a cap and apron
that he passed occasionally on the stairs. On Thursday he saw me in my
best clothes, and fell in love with me. He doesn't know it himself,
poor dear, not yet, but that's what he's done."

Well, I couldn't contradict her, not after the way I had seen him
looking at her across the table.

"What are your feelings towards him," I says, "to be quite honest? He's
rather a good catch for a young person in your position."

"That's my trouble," she says. "I can't help thinking of that. And
then to be 'Mrs. John Parable'! That's e