ver o' no use to yer?"

"Yes, you are," said Dolly, cheerily, "and you can't help the sore
throat, you know. You are a great deal of use to me sometimes. See how
you save my hands from being spoiled; they would n't be as white as they
are if I had to polish the grates and build the fires. Never mind, you
will be better in a day or so. Now for the cookery-book."

"I never seen no one like her," muttered the delighted Sepoy, returning
to her vigorous cleaning of kettles and pans. "I never seen no one like
none on 'em, they 're that there good-natured an' easy on folk."

It was a busy day for Dolly, as well as for the rest of them, and there
was a by no means unpleasant excitement in the atmosphere of business.
The cookery, too, was a success, the game pates being a triumph, the
tarts beautiful to behold, and the rest of the culinary experiments so
marvellous, that Griffith, arriving early in the morning, and being
led down into the pantry to look at them as a preliminary ceremony,
professed to be struck dumb with admiration.

"There," said Dolly, backing up against the wall in her excitement, and
thrusting her hands very far into her apron pockets indeed,--"there!
what do you think of _that_, sir?" And she stood before him in a perfect
glow of triumph, her cheeks like roses, her sleeves rolled above
her dimpled elbows, her hair pushed on her forehead, and her general
appearance so deliciously business-like and agreeably professional
that the dusts of flour that were so prominent a feature in her costume
seemed only an additional charm.

"Think of it?" said Griffith. "It is the most imposing display I ever
saw in my life. The trimmings upon those tarts are positively artistic.
You don't mean to say you did it all yourself?"

"Yes," regarding them critically,--"ev-er-y bit," with a little nod for
every syllable.

"Won-der-ful!" with an air of complimentary incredulity. "May I ask if
there is anything you can _not_ do?"

"There is absolutely nothing," sententiously. And then somehow or other
they were standing close together, as usual, his arm around her waist,
her hands clasped upon his sleeve. "When we get the house in Putney, or
Bayswater, or Peckham Eise, or whatever it is to be," she said, laughing
in her most coaxing way, "this sort of thing will be convenient. And it
_is_ to come, you know,--the house, I mean."

"Yes," admitted Griffith, with dubious cheerfulness, "it _is_ to
come,--some time or other."

B