l she herself might be more ecstatically irradiated with a glance
and smile from Miss Faith.

There was need enough of Aunt Faith's ministrations during these first,
few, unsettled weeks. The young woman who "had no objections to the
country," objected no more to these pleasant country fashions of
neighborly kindness. She had reason. Aunt Faith's "thirds bread," or
crisp "vanity cakes," or "velvet creams," were no sooner disposed of
than there surely came a starvation interval of sour biscuits, heavy
gingerbread, and tough pie crust, and dinners feebly cooked, with no
attempt at desserts, at all.

This was gloomy. This was the first trial of their country life.
Plainly, this cook was no cook. Mr. Gartney's dyspepsia must be
considered. Kinnicutt air and June sunshine would not do all the
curative work. The healthy appetite they stimulated must be wholesomely
supplied.

Faith took to the kitchen. To Glory's mute and rapturous delight, she
began to come almost daily up the field path, in her pretty round hat
and morning wrapper, to waylay her aunt in the tidy kitchen at the early
hour when her cookery was sure to be going on, to ask questions and
investigate, and "help a little," and then to go home and repeat the
operation as nearly as she could for their somewhat later dinner.

"Miss McGonegal seems to be improving," observed Mr. Gartney,
complacently, one day, as he partook of a simple, but favorite pudding,
nicely flavored and compounded; "or is this a charity of Aunt
Henderson's?"

"No," replied his wife, "it is home manufacture," and she glanced at
Faith without dropping her tone to a period. Faith shook her head, and
the sentence hung in the air, unfinished.

Mrs. Gartney had not been strong for years. Moreover, she had not a
genius for cooking. That is a real gift, as much as a genius for poetry
or painting. Faith was finding out, suddenly, that she had it. But she
was quite willing that her father should rest in the satisfactory belief
that Miss McGonegal, in whom it never, by any possibility, could be
developed, was improving; and that the good things that found their way
to his table had a paid and permanent origin. He was more comfortable
so, she thought. Meanwhile, they would inquire if the region round about
Kinnicutt might be expected to afford a substitute.

Dr. Wasgatt's wife told Mrs. Gartney of a young American woman who was
staying in the "factory village" beyond Lakeside, and who had asked her