s with the privileged
retainer. "Well, and you haven't managed to pick up a husband yet? Ho,
ho!"

"Yan's the wurrd, Mr Hesketh. They're to be had for the pickin' up.
But it'll end in ma havin' to come and tak' care o' yeerself, A'm
thinkin'. Yan dust," designating her recent work, "must have been lyin'
aroound for a yeer at least."

This retort, naively ambiguous, given with perfect equability, raised a
laugh among its hearers, who chose to read but one of its two potential
meanings.

"Now, Uncle Eph," said the girl, decisively. "We are going to get the
breakfast ready, and it's nearly ready now--and we've got a little
surprise for you. I should prefer you all to go outside and amuse
yourselves for the next quarter of an hour; in fact, till I call you
in."

This was a command there was no gainsaying. Old Ephraim gave a dry
chuckle, reached for his pipe, and obeyed without a word. Harley
Greenoak likewise. But Dick Selmes said--

"Do let me stay and help you, Miss Brandon. Why, it'll be like a jolly
picnic."

She hesitated a moment.

"No," she said. "We don't want any men." Then he followed the others.

When they returned they found she had been as good as her word. This
was a surprise indeed. Dick Selmes, the only one given to expressing
that emotion outwardly, was metaphorically rubbing his eyes. Where, for
instance, was the soiled, coarse-textured old cloth, covering one end of
the bare table--where the camp-kettle, handed from one to the other from
its usual resting-place on the floor, as more coffee was needed? Where
the weather-beaten enamel ware, the tin pannikins holding the milk and
sugar, the cloudy spoons? Where, too, the dark-brown bread, and the
mess badly and indifferently cooked in a frying-pan? Gone--wholly gone.
Instead, a snowy cloth, bright, hissing urn, patterned china,
_roester-koekjes_ steaming white within. Chops, too, hot from the
gridiron, juicy and crisp, and a great honeycomb reposing in a sparkling
cut-glass dish. The metamorphosis was complete indeed.

"We'll come to believe in fairy tales again soon," said old Hesketh as
he gazed upon this. "You haven't let the grass grow under your feet--
eh, Hazel?"

"No, Uncle Eph. I'm going to civilise you a bit, now that I'm here.
You men get into shockingly careless ways. What's the good of having
all these nice tablecloths and tea sets if you don't use them? So the
first thing we did was to dig them out of the bo