yesterday!"

"I'm afraid it is, 'em," says the butler, very sadly.

"And this is the cook Miss Gaunt so highly recommended!" says Dulce,
wrathfully. "Save me from my friends, say I; can't she make anything
else, Martin?"

"This is a gooseberry tart, 'em," whispers the butler, respectfully, a
faint shade of encouragement in his voice, laying that delicacy before
her.

"That means sugar--lots of sugar," says Dicky Browne, who is sitting
close to her. "I'm glad of that, I like lots of sugar."

Portia laughs.

"You are like my lord mayor's fool," she says; "you like everything that
is sweet."

"I do," says Dicky, fondly; "that's why I like you."

"I think it was very wrong of Miss Gaunt to impose such a woman upon
us," says Dulce, deeply aggrieved.

"Never trust an old maid," says Roger; "I spend my life giving you good
advice, which you won't take; and such an old maid, too, as Miss Gaunt!
She is as good (or as bad) as two rolled into one."

"She said she was a perfect treasure," exclaims Miss Blount, casting an
indignant glance at him.

"Send her back her treasure, then, and tell her, as you are not selfish,
you could not think of depriving _her_ of her services."

"Is that a sample of your good advice?" asks she, with considerable
scorn. "Besides, I can't; I have agreed with this woman to stay here for
a month."

"Fancy suet dumplings every day for a month," says Dicky Browne,
unfeelingly; "that means four weeks--thirty-one days! We shall be dead,
I shouldn't wonder, long before that."

"No such luck," says Sir Mark.

"Give her anything she wants, Dulce, and send her away," says Sir
Christopher.

"But she will think me so unkind and capricious," protests Dulce, who is
an arrant little coward, and is afraid to tell cook she no longer
requires her. The cook is a big Scotchwoman, with very large bones, and
a great many of them.

"Well, do whatever you like," says Uncle Christopher, wearily.

The night is fine, calm, and cool, and sweet with many perfumes. Some of
them at table cast lingering glances at the lawn without, and long,
silently, to be standing on it. The moon has risen, and cast across it
great streaks of silver light that brighten and darken as clouds race
each other o'er Astarte's sacred brow.

There is great silence on the air, broken only by a "murmuring winde,
much like the sowne of swarming bees." A little rivulet in the far
distance runs musically.

"Let us all go out," says Jul