it is
with the sap. In spring the sap possesses a certain virtue; at other
times of the year the leaf is still green, but useless to us."

"I shall have some vinegar," said Mrs. Iden, defiantly, stretching out
her hand to the cruet.

Mr. Iden made a wry face, as if the mere mention of vinegar had set his
teeth on edge. He looked the other way and ate as fast as he could, to
close his eyes to the spectacle of any one spoiling the sappy swede
greens with nauseous vinegar. To his system of edible philosophy vinegar
was utterly antagonistic--destructive of the sap-principle, altogether
wrong, and, in fact, wicked, as destroying good and precious food.

Amaryllis would not have dared to have taken the vinegar herself, but as
her mother passed the cruet to her, she, too, fell away, and mixed
vinegar with the green vegetables. All women like vinegar.

When the bottle was restored to the cruet-stand Mr. Iden deigned to look
round again at the table.

"Ha! you'll cut your thumb!" he shouted to Amaryllis, who was cutting a
piece of bread. She put the loaf down with a consciousness of guilt.
"Haven't I told you how to cut bread twenty times? Cutting towards your
thumb like that! Hold your left hand lower down, so that if the knife
slips it will go over. Here, like this. Give it to me."

He cut a slice to show her, and then tossed the slice across the table
so accurately that it fell exactly into its proper place by her plate.
He had a habit of tossing things in that way.

"Why ever couldn't you pass it on the tray?" said Mrs. Iden. "Flinging
in that manner! I hate to see it."

Amaryllis, as in duty bound, in appearance took the lesson in
bread-cutting to heart, as she had done twenty times before. But she
knew she should still cut a loaf in the same dangerous style when out of
his sight. She could not do it in the safe way--it was so much easier in
the other; and if she did cut her hand she did not greatly care.

"Now perhaps you'll remember," said the master, getting up with his
plate in his hand.

"Whatever _are_ you going to do now?" asked Mrs. Iden, who knew
perfectly well.

"Going to warm the plate." He went out into the kitchen, sat down by the
fire, and carefully warmed his plate for a second helping.

"I should think you couldn't want any more," said Mrs. Iden when he came
back. "You had enough the first time for three."

But Iden, who had the appetite of a giant, and had never ruined his
digestion with vi