eaches the dog
tricks. It makes him happy to feel himself rushed, and to go carrying
unopened letters at tea-time. They have no children. Mrs. Jowett is a
dear. She collects servants as other people collect prints or old china
or Sheffield plate. They are her hobby, and she has the most wonderful
knack of managing them. Even now, when good servants seem to have become
extinct, and people who need five or six are grubbing away miserably
with one and a charwoman, she has four pearls with soft voices and
gentle ways, experts at their job. She thinks about them all the time,
and considers their comfort, and dresses them in pale grey with the
daintiest spotted muslin aprons and mob caps. It is a pleasure to go to
the Jowetts for a meal, everything is so perfect. The only drawback is
if anyone makes the slightest mark on the cloth one of the silver-grey
maids brings a saucer of water and wipes it off, and it is apt to make
one nervous. I shall never forget going there to a children's party with
David and Jock. Great-aunt Alison warned us most solemnly before we left
home about marking the cloth, so we went rather tremblingly. There was a
splendid tea in the dining-room with silver candlesticks and pink
shades, and lovely china, and a glittering cloth, and heaps of good
things to eat--grown-up things like sandwiches and rich cakes, such as
we hardly ever saw. Jock was quite small and loved his food even more
than he does now, dear lamb. A maid handed round the egg-shell china--if
only they had given us mugs--and as she was putting down Jock's cup he
turned round suddenly and his elbow simply shot it out of her hand, and
sent it flying across the table. As it went it spattered everything with
weak tea and then smashed itself against one of the candlesticks.

"I wished at that moment that the world would come to an end. There
seemed no other way of clearing up the mess. I was so ashamed, and so
sorry for my poor Jock, I couldn't lift my eyes, but Mr. Jowett rose to
the occasion and earned my affection and unending gratitude. He
pretended to find it a very funny episode, and made so many jokes about
it that stiffness vanished from the party, and we all became riotously
happy. And Mrs. Jowett, whose heart must have been wrung to see the
beautiful table ruined at the outset, so mastered her emotion as to be
able to smile and say no harm had been done.... You must go with me and
see Mrs. Jowett, only don't tell her anything in the ve