go. But when he came to me, I always said, 'La
Fleur goes to church when she likes and where she chooses.' And the
butler, being a man of brains, set down any church and time that happened
to suit his fancy, and my lady was never the wiser; and if I felt like
going to church, I went, and if I didn't, I didn't. But when the family
went to their seat in Scotland, they did not take their butler with them,
and the piper was sent round on Sunday morning to find out about the
servants going to church. And when he came to me, I said the same thing
I had always said, and do you know that pink-headed Scotchman put it down
in the book and carried it to my lady. And when she read it, she was in a
great rage, to be sure, and sent for me and wanted to know what I meant
by such a message. Then I told her I meant no offence by it, and that I
didn't think the idiot would put it down, but that I was too old to
change my ways, and that if her ladyship wasn't willing that I should
keep on in them, she would have to dismiss me. And then I curtsied and
left her; and my lord, when he heard of it, got a new piper. 'For,' said
he, 'a fool's a dangerous thing to have in the house,' and I stayed on
two years. So you see, Miss Miriam, that we are getting to the
point,--even my strait-laced lady made her opinions about church-going
give way before high art in her cook. For, as much as she might say
against my creations and compositions, she had gotten so used to 'em,
she couldn't do without 'em."

"Well," said Miriam, "I suppose when the time comes I do not like
everything as I do now, I shall care more for some things. But I mustn't
sit here; I must go up to my sewing."

"Miriam!" exclaimed Mrs. Drane, "what on earth are you working at?
Shutting yourself up, day after day, in your room, and at hours, too,
when everything is so pleasant outside. Cannot you bring out here what
you are doing?"

"No," said Miriam, "because it is a secret; but it is nearly finished,
and as I shall have to tell you about it very soon, I may as well do it
now: I have been altering Judith Pacewalk's teaberry gown for Cicely. It
was altered once for me, and that makes it all the harder to make it fit
her now. I am not very good at that sort of thing, and so it has taken me
a long time. I expected to have it ready for her when she came back from
the wedding trip, but I could not do it. I shall finish it to-day,
however, and to-morrow I am going to invest her with it. Sh