un. He laid them on the table, and after
deftly picking out one or two dead flies from the butter turned to the
girl with a grin in which pride was evident, though it was apparently
meant to be deprecatory.

"I guess this is the kind of thing you were used to in the old country,
Miss," he said. "You have only got to tell me if you would fancy a
piece of cold pork or other fixings."

Alice Deringham dared not glance at her father, who seemed to be gazing
fixedly down the valley, but her lips quivered a little as she turned
towards the man.

"I do not think we shall want anything else," she said with a serenity
that cost her an effort, though it was excellently assumed.

The man limped away with the tray, though he stopped again at the foot
of the stairway. "If you take a notion of that pork after all, hammer
on the iron roofing sheet there, and I'll bring it right away," he said.

Alice Deringham waited until he was out of sight, and then lay back in
her chair and laughed when her father glanced at her with a little grim
smile.

"Savages, my dear!" he said. "Still, their intentions are evidently
kindly, which is unfortunate because it involves us in a difficulty."

"A difficulty?"

Deringham nodded. "I have a suspicion that our estimable kinsman, who
seems to consider that what is good enough for Somasco should content
anybody, might be offended if we slighted his hospitality, and that
teapot apparently contains at least three pints of strong green tea,"
he said. "I do not know whether you feel equal to consuming half of
it, but if it is the same as I had at breakfast I must be excused. One
could also fancy from their solidity that those cups had been intended
for breaking stones with."

"I can at least pour the tea over the balustrade," said the girl. "It
is the bread that presents the difficulty. It would crumble in your
pocket, and you will presumably have to eat a little to save
appearances."

Deringham made a gesture of resignation. "On condition that you do as
much. I am not going to be the only victim, though I fancy you could
not crumble that bread in a stamp battery. This meal, and what we have
otherwise seen at Somasco, confirms my theory that the folks who make
money in the Colonies could save as much, or more, in England if they
lived in a similar fashion."

"Would it be worth while?" asked the girl with a little smile.

"It is a question of temperament," said Deringham. "Personall