.

The old lady did not care for tea, but as she considered that she could
not eat strawberries on an empty stomach, she took some, and was just
about to cast a critical eye on the bread, when a maid entered, bearing a
dish containing two little square pieces of fish, covered with a greenish
white sauce, and decorated with bits of water-cress.

As soon as Miss Panney's eyes fell upon this dish, she understood the
situation--Mrs. Tolbridge had actually fallen back upon Kipper. Kipper
was a caterer in Thorbury, and a good one. He was patronized by the
citizens on extraordinary festive occasions, but depended for his custom
principally upon certain families who came to the village for a few
months in the summer, and who did not care to trouble themselves with
much domestic machinery.

"Kipper, indeed," thought the old lady; "that is the last peg. A
caterer's tid-bit for a hard-working man. If she would have her fish
cooked properly in her own house, she could give him six times as much
for half the money. And positively," she continued, in inward speech, as
the maid presented the bread and butter, "Kipper's biscuit! I suppose she
is going to let him provide her with everything, just as he does for
those rich people on Maple Avenue."

The fish was very good, and Miss Panney ate every morsel of it, but made
no remark concerning it. Instead of speaking of food, she talked of the
doings of the Methodist congregation in Thorbury, who were planning to
build a new church, far more expensive than she believed they could
afford. She was engaged in berating Mr. Hampton, the minister, who, she
declared, was actually encouraging his flock in their proposed
extravagance, when the maid gave her a clean plate, and handed her a dish
of sweetbread, tastefully garnished with clover blossoms and leaves. Miss
Panney stopped talking, gazed at the dish for a minute, and then helped
herself to a goodly portion of its contents.

"Feathers," she said to herself; "no more than froth and feathers to a
man who has been working hard half a day, and as to the extravagance of
such flimsy victuals--" She could keep quiet no longer, she was obliged
to speak out, and she burst into a tirade against people who called
themselves pious, and yet, wilfully shutting their eyes, were about to
plunge into wicked wastefulness. She ate as she talked, however, and she
had brought up John Wesley, and was about to give her notion of what he
would have had to say a