of security. Surely it couldn't be Mrs. Fisher,
wanting to sit with her? Mrs. Fisher had her battlements. She ought
to stay on them, having snatched them. It would be too tiresome if she
wouldn't, and wanted not only to have them and her sitting-room but to
establish herself in this garden as well.

No; it wasn't Mrs. Fisher, it was the cook.

She frowned. Was she going to have to go on ordering the food?
Surely one or other of those two waving women would do that now.

The cook, who had been waiting in increasing agitation in the
kitchen, watching the clock getting nearer to lunch--time while she
still was without knowledge of what lunch was to consist of, had gone
at last to Mrs. Fisher, who had immediately waved her away. She then
wandered about the house seeking a mistress, any mistress, who would
tell her what to cook, and finding none; and at last, directed by
Francesca, who always knew where everybody was, came out to Lady
Caroline.

Dominica had provided this cook. She was Costanza, the sister of
that one of his cousins who kept a restaurant down on the piazza. She
helped her brother in his cooking when she had no other job, and knew
every sort of fat, mysterious Italian dish such as the workmen of
Castagneto, who crowded the restaurant at midday, and the inhabitants
of Mezzago when they came over on Sundays, loved to eat. She was a
fleshless spinster of fifty, grey-haired, nimble, rich of speech, and
thought Lady Caroline more beautiful than anyone she had ever seen; and
so did Domenico; and so did the boy Giuseppe who helped Domenico and
was, besides, his nephew; and so did the girl Angela who helped
Francesca and was, besides, Domenico's niece; and so did Francesca
herself. Domenico and Francesca, the only two who had seen them,
thought the two ladies who arrived last very beautiful, but compared to
the fair young lady who arrived first they were as candles to the
electric light that had lately been installed, and as the tin tubs in
the bedrooms to the wonderful new bathroom their master had had
arranged on his last visit.

Lady Caroline scowled at the cook. The scowl, as usual, was
transformed on the way into what appeared to be an intent and beautiful
gravity, and Costanza threw up her hands and took the saints aloud to
witness that here was the very picture of the Mother of God.

Lady Caroline asked her crossly what she wanted, and Costanza's
head went on one side with delight at the she