suspected of intemperate
habits, was hopelessly inebriated last night, and had to be conveyed out
of the house by my husband and a dear, devoted friend who happened to be
dining with us, and deposited in a four-wheeler. May I look in tomorrow
afternoon and pour out my grief to you? Yours cordially,

"Pamela St. Aubyn Fothergill."

When the Marchesa had opened four more letters, one from Lady Considine,
one from Mrs. Sinclair, one from Miss Macdonnell, and one from Mrs.
Wilding, and found that all these ladies were obliged to postpone their
dinners on account of the misdeeds of their cooks, she felt that the
laws of average were all adrift. Surely the three remaining letters
must contain news of a character to counterbalance what had already been
revealed, but the event showed that, on this particular morning,
Fortune was in a mood to strike hard. Colonel Trestrail, who gave in
his chambers carefully devised banquets, compounded by a Bengali who was
undoubtedly something of a genius, wrote to say that this personage had
left at a day's notice, in order to embrace Christianity and marry a
lady's-maid who had just come into a legacy of a thousand pounds under
the will of her late mistress. Another correspondent, Mrs. Gradinger,
wrote that her German cook had announced that the dignity of womanhood
was, in her opinion, slighted by the obligation to prepare food for
others in exchange for mere pecuniary compensation. Only on condition of
the grant of perfect social equality would she consent to stay, and Mrs.
Gradinger, though she held advanced opinions, was hardly advanced far
enough to accept this suggestion. Last of all, Mr. Sebastian van der
Roet was desolate to announce that his cook, a Japanese, whose dishes
were, in his employer's estimation, absolute inspirations, had decamped
and taken with him everything of value he could lay hold of; and more
than desolate, that he was forced to postpone the pleasure of welcoming
the Marchesa di Sant' Andrea at his table.

When she had finished reading this last note, the Marchesa gathered the
whole mass of her morning's correspondence together, and uttering a few
Italian words which need not be translated, rolled it into a ball and
hurled the same to the farthest corner of the room. "How is it," she
ejaculated, "that these English, who dominate the world abroad, cannot
get their food properly cooked at home? I suppose it is because they, in
their lofty way, look upon cookery as