der her breath.

Sally had gone to the small mirror which hung in a corner of the
kitchen, and was hastily smoothing her hair and setting her frilled cap
at its most becoming angle over her dark curls; then she took up
the tankards by their handles, three in each strong, brown hand, and
laughing, grumbling, blushing, carried them through into the coffee
room.

There, there was certainly no sign of that bustle and activity which
kept four women busy and hot in the glowing kitchen beyond.

The coffee-room of "The Fisherman's Rest" is a show place now at the
beginning of the twentieth century. At the end of the eighteenth, in the
year of grace 1792, it had not yet gained the notoriety and importance
which a hundred additional years and the craze of the age have since
bestowed upon it. Yet it was an old place, even then, for the oak
rafters and beams were already black with age--as were the panelled
seats, with their tall backs, and the long polished tables between,
on which innumerable pewter tankards had left fantastic patterns of
many-sized rings. In the leaded window, high up, a row of pots of
scarlet geraniums and blue larkspur gave the bright note of colour
against the dull background of the oak.

That Mr. Jellyband, landlord of "The Fisherman's Rest" at Dover, was
a prosperous man, was of course clear to the most casual observer. The
pewter on the fine old dressers, the brass above the gigantic hearth,
shone like silver and gold--the red-tiled floor was as brilliant as the
scarlet geranium on the window sill--this meant that his servants were
good and plentiful, that the custom was constant, and of that order
which necessitated the keeping up of the coffee-room to a high standard
of elegance and order.

As Sally came in, laughing through her frowns, and displaying a row
of dazzling white teeth, she was greeted with shouts and chorus of
applause.

"Why, here's Sally! What ho, Sally! Hurrah for pretty Sally!"

"I thought you'd grown deaf in that kitchen of yours," muttered Jimmy
Pitkin, as he passed the back of his hand across his very dry lips.

"All ri'! all ri'!" laughed Sally, as she deposited the freshly-filled
tankards upon the tables, "why, what a 'urry to be sure! And is your
gran'mother a-dyin' an' you wantin' to see the pore soul afore she'm
gone! I never see'd such a mighty rushin'" A chorus of good-humoured
laughter greeted this witticism, which gave the company there present
food for many jokes,