tter plans may
suggest themselves. For instance, I have noticed that if you chop up
an onion with a knife, and then spread butter with the same knife, the
butter gets a most objectionable taste. You have onions about the
house, I suppose."

"I have."

"Then you might try that. And there's a way of dealing with bacon.
I'm not quite sure how it's done, but the taste all goes out of it, and
it gets extremely tough. Then you fry it in such a way that it's quite
limp, and sprinkle a little soot on it. I've often tried to eat bacon
done that way--before I was married, of course--and I never could. I
don't suppose the judge will be able to either. Boiled eggs are
difficult things to tamper with, but you could always see that they
were stale."

"I could not, then."

"You could, Sabina. Don't raise frivolous difficulties. Anybody could
keep an egg until it was stale."

"Not in this house."

"And why not?"

"Because they'd be ate," said Sabina. "Whatever many eggs the hens
might lay they'd be ate by some one before they were a day in the
house, and I couldn't keep them. There was a little Plymouth Rock hen
that was wanting to sit here last week, and it took me all I could do
and more to get the eggs saved up for her, and at the latter end I had
only nine."

"Is she sitting yet!"

"She is, of course."

"Then you might try the judge with the eggs that's under her."

"I will not, then. Is it after all the trouble I had with her, and the
chickens will be out early next week. I never heard of the like."

"Well," said Meldon, "I'll have to leave the boiled eggs to you,
Sabina, but I'll be disappointed in you if the judge eats them. Do you
think now that you thoroughly understand what you've got to do?"

"I do. Why wouldn't I?"

"Then I'll say good-bye to you. I'm much obliged to you for the cup of
tea. And remember, Sabina, this isn't any kind of a joke. It's
serious business, and I mean every word I say. It's most important
that the judge should leave Ballymoy as soon as possible."

"Is it persecuting the League boys he's after?" said Sabina. "For
there's a cousin of my own that's in with them, and--"

"Brother of the red-haired girl at Mr. Simpkins?"

"He is; and I wouldn't like any harm would come to him."

"You act as I have told you, and no harm will come to him. But if the
judge stays on here it's impossible to say what may happen. You know
what judges are, Sabina."

"I've heard te