window-seat and shyed his hat across the kitchen, whilst Long Tom, the
bullock-driver, "thanked me kindly for mentioning of it;" and every body
got up directly and took their hats off. I felt immensely proud of my
success, and hastened the moment of my return to the drawing room, where
I announced my triumph. I repeated my little speech as concisely as
possible; but, alas, it was not nearly so well received as it had been
in the kitchen! "Have you ever gone to see a London club?" one person
inquired. "Ah: I thought not! I don't know about the Prince, because he
always _does_ do the prettiest things at the right moment, but I
doubt very much about all the others. I fear you have made a very wild
assertion to get your own way." I need hardly say I sulked at that
incredulous individual for many days but he always stuck firmly to his
own opinion. However, my men never required another hint. They came just
as regularly as usual to church, and we all lived happily ever after.

I feel that my chapter should end here; but any record of my New Zealand
servants would be incomplete without mention of my "bearded cook." Every
body thinks, when I say this, that I am going to tell them about a man,
but it is nothing of the sort. Isabella Lyon, in spite of her pronounced
beard, was a very fine woman; exceedingly good-humoured looking and
fresh-coloured, with most amiable prepossessing manners. She had not
long arrived, and had been at once snapped up for an hotel, but she
applied for my place, saying she wished for quiet and a country life.
Could any thing be more propitious? I thought, like Lois, that my luck,
so long in turning, was improving, and that at last I was to have a cook
who knew her business. And so she did, thoroughly and delightfully. For
one brief fortnight we lived on dainties. Never could I have believed
that such a variety of dishes could have been produced out of mutton.
In fact we seemed to have everything at table except the staple dish.
Unlike the cook who actually sent me in a roast shoulder of mutton
for breakfast one morning, Isabella prided herself on eliminating the
monotonous animal from her bills of fare. Certainly she was rather
heavy on the sauces, etc., and I was trying to pluck up courage to
remonstrate, as it would not be easy or cheap to replace them before
a certain time of year. And then she was so clean, so smiling, and so
good-tempered. She seemed to treat us all as if we were a parcel of
childre