zur, zo 'a
cude."

He winked and nodded as he pocketed the coin; and John, half laughing
and half vexed, pursued his road with Sarah.

"It seems to me that the old gentleman has become a trifle free and
easy with advancing years," he observed.

"He thinks he has a right to be interested in the family," said Sarah,
"because of the connection, you see."

"The connection?"

"Didn't you know?" she asked, with wide-open eyes. "Though you were
Sir Timothy's own cousin."

"A very distant cousin," said John.

"But every one in the valley knows," said Sarah, "that Sir Timothy's
father married his own cook, who was Happy Jack's first cousin. When I
was a little girl, and wanted to tease Peter," she added ingenuously,
"I always used to allude to it. It is the skeleton in their cupboard.
We haven't got a skeleton in our family," she added regretfully;
"least of all the skeleton of a cook."

John remembered vaguely that there was a story about the second
marriage of Sir Timothy the elder.

"So she was a cook!" he said. "Well, what harm?" and he laughed in
spite of himself. "I wonder why there is something so essentially
unromantic in the profession of a cook?"

"Her family went to Australia, and they are quite rich people now:
no more cooks than you and me," said Sarah, gravely. "But Happy Jack
won't leave Youlestone, though he says they tempted him with untold
gold. And he wouldn't touch his hat to Sir Timothy, because he was his
cousin. That was another skeleton."

"But a very small one," said John, laughing.

"It might seem small to _us_, but I'm sure it was one reason why Sir
Timothy never went outside his own gates if he could help it," said
Sarah, shrewdly. "Luckily the cook died when he was born."

"Why luckily, poor thing?" said John, indignantly.

"She wouldn't have had much of a time, would she, do you think, with
Sir Timothy's sisters?" asked Sarah, with simplicity. "They were in
the schoolroom when their papa married her, or I am sure they would
never have allowed it. Their own mother was a most select person; and
little thought when she gave the orders for dinner, and all that, who
the old gentleman's _next_ wife would be," said Sarah, giggling. "They
always talk of her as the _Honourable Rachel_, since _Lady Crewys_,
you know, might just as well mean the cook. I suppose the old squire
got tired of her being so select, and thought he would like a change.
He was a character, you know. I often think Pet