g Dutch girl, in a green
bonnet with red ribbons, with mouth wide open, and hands and feet
that would have made a Greek sculptor open _his_ mouth too. I
addressed forthwith a few words of encouragement to each of this
cultivated-looking couple, and proceeded to ask their names; and
forthwith the old woman began to snuffle and to wipe her face with
what was left of an old silk pocket-handkerchief preparatory to
speaking, while the young lady opened her mouth wider, and looked
around with a frightened air, as if meditating an escape. After some
preliminaries, however, I found out that my old woman was Mrs.
Tibbins, and my Hebe's name was _Kotterin_; also, that she knew much
more Dutch than English, and not any too much of either. The old lady
was the cook. I ventured a few inquiries. "Had she ever cooked?"

"Yes, ma'am, sartain; she had lived at two or three places in the
city."

"I suspect, my dear," said my husband confidently, "that she is an
experienced cook, and so your troubles are over;" and he went to
reading his newspaper. I said no more, but determined to wait till
morning. The breakfast, to be sure, did not do much honor to the
talents of my official; but it was the first time, and the place was
new to her. After breakfast was cleared away I proceeded to give
directions for dinner; it was merely a plain joint of meat, I said, to
be roasted in the tin oven. The experienced cook looked at me with a
stare of entire vacuity. "The tin oven," I repeated, "stands there,"
pointing to it.

She walked up to it, and touched it with such an appearance of
suspicion as if it had been an electrical battery, and then looked
round at me with a look of such helpless ignorance that my soul was
moved. "I never see one of them things before," said she.

"Never saw a tin oven!" I exclaimed. "I thought you said you had
cooked in two or three families."

"They does not have such things as them, though," rejoined my old
lady. Nothing was to be done, of course, but to instruct her into the
philosophy of the case; and having spitted the joint, and given
numberless directions, I walked off to my room to superintend the
operations of Kotterin, to whom I had committed the making of my bed
and the sweeping of my room, it never having come into my head that
there could be a wrong way of making a bed; and to this day it is a
marvel to me how any one could arrange pillows and quilts to make such
a nondescript appearance as mine now prese