moral elevation which comes to every
properly-constituted host, when a guest has eaten heartily of the viands
set before him.

"No," Lord Blandamer said, "there can be no doubt that cushion tripe is
the best."

"Quite as much depends upon the cooking as upon the tripe itself,"
remarked Mrs Janaway, bridling at the thought that her art had been
left out of the reckoning; "a bad cook will spoil the best tripe. There
are many ways of doing it, but a little milk and a leek is the best for
me."

"You cannot beat it," Lord Blandamer assented--"you cannot beat it"--and
then went on suggestively: "Have you ever tried a sprig of mace with
it?"

No, Mrs Janaway had never heard of that; nor, indeed, had Lord
Blandamer either, if the point had been pushed; but she promised to use
it the very next time, and hoped that the august visitor would honour
them again when it was to be tasted.

"'Tis only Saturday nights that we can get the cushion," she went on;
"and it's well it don't come oftener, for we couldn't afford it. No
woman ever had a call to have a better husband nor Thomas, who spends
little enough on hisself. He don't touch nothing but tea, sir, but
Saturday nights we treat ourselves to a little tripe, which is all the
more convenient in that it is very strengthening, and my husband's
duties on Sunday being that urgent-like. So, if your lordship is fond
of tripe, and passing another Saturday night, and will do us the honour,
you will always find something ready."

"Thank you very much for your kind invitation," Lord Blandamer said; "I
shall certainly take you at your word, the more so that Saturday is the
day on which I am oftenest in Cullerne, or, I should say, have happened
to be lately."

"There's poor and poor," said the clerk reflectively; "and _we're_ poor,
but we're happy; but there's Mr Sharnall poor and unhappy. `Mr
Sharnall,' says I to him, `many a time have I heard my father say over a
pot of tenpenny, "Here's to poverty in a plug-hole, and a man with a
wooden leg to trample it down;" but you never puts your poverty in a
plug-hole, much less tramples it down. You always has it out and airs
it, and makes yourself sad with thinking of it. 'Tisn't because you're
poor that you're sad; 'tis because you _think_ you're poor, and talk so
much about it. You're not so poor as we, only you have so many
grievances.'"

"Ah, you are speaking of the organist?" Lord Blandamer asked. "I fancy
it was he who was