tly proper dining-room. And it did.

Ellen and the "nice lady," who had been sewing for Mrs. Phelps, joined
them at once, and the talk languished as each was called upon to help
the other in a wearisome round of small dishes, which it seemed to Joyce
was like the stage processions that simply go out at one side to come in
at the other. But when she tasted of these she no longer begrudged their
number. They were each deliciously palatable, having a taste so new to
her hotel-sated palate that she could almost have smacked her lips over
them in her enjoyment. She had a healthy girlish appetite and the
morning had been long. She positively wanted to pass back one or two of
the saucers for refilling, but was ashamed of her greediness. Had she
known that it would have rejoiced Mrs. Phelps for days to be thus
honored by real appreciation of the dainties she had herself prepared,
she certainly would have done so. Even Ellen forgot to sniff, and all
set to with a vigor that rather precluded conversation.

She thought about it afterwards, as she sat in the train, moving rapidly
citywards, and wondered why there had been such positive pleasure in the
mere taste of food. She had sat and minced over rich dishes day after
day, and never felt that exquisite sense of wholesomeness and
recuperation.

She turned to Ellen.

"Did you ever eat such nice things before? What made them so good,
anyhow?"

Ellen smiled with unusual relaxation.

"They was nice, wa'n't they? Well, I'll tell you what my mother used to
say, and she was the best cook in Eaton county, by all odds. Them things
made me think of her to-day. She used to say that 'twas with cooking
just like 'twas with church work, or anything else. You'd got to put
heart into it, as well as muscle. She said these hired cooks just put in
muscle and skill, and they stopped there. But when a mother was cooking
for her own fam'ly she put in them, and heart besides, and that was why
men was allays telling about their mother's cooking. That was what she
said, and I guess she come as near to it as most folks."

"I guess she did," assented Joyce. "Well, if I can put into my work the
same quality Mrs. Phelps puts into her cooking I shall make a success of
it; won't I, Ellen?"

"Don't ask me!" was the quick response, as the maid drew herself up into
the austere lines she affected. "You must remember hearts don't amount
to much till they've been hammered out by hard knocks. You'll do your