e declared. She rounded her shoulders, and pressed her
hands upon a chest made hollow for the occasion, and her knees gave way
under her, to prove how strongly she was affected.

"Then, why did you come to the sea?" I asked, for I was a little tired
of Julia's grumbling.

"I came to look after you and your nerves, Isabella," she reminded me;
"and how could I possibly know I shouldn't like the sea in November
till I had seen it?"

We had ordered tea to be ready for us, and after our long railway
journey we were more than ready for the meal.

"The woman of the house is a most miserable, frightened-looking
creature," Julia remarked. "It is to be hoped that, at any rate, she
will provide us with decently cooked food."

On this score I had no misgivings. Miss Ferriman, in one of her
letters, had laid special stress upon the fact that Mrs Ragg, the
caretaker, was an excellent cook.

She offered us no solacing specimen of her culinary art, however. The
round table in the bay-window of our sitting-room was spread simply
with the materials for brewing tea and for cutting bread-and-butter.

Julia's eyes blazed with hunger and indignation. "This is your fault,
Isabella!" she declared. "What did you order, pray?"

"Something substantial. It is very annoying," I could not help
confessing.

Julia angrily jingled the little bell. "We want something to eat," she
said, as the caretaker appeared. "Cook us two chops, please; as quickly
as possible."

Mrs Ragg looked at us from the doorway with the same gaze of fascinated
terror with which a half-starved crow might regard two wild cats taking
possession of its cage. With her garments of shabby black, her black
untidy hair, her long beak and startled eyes, she had something of the
appearance of a bedraggled, ill-used bird of that species. Her
trembling, clawlike fingers played with the buttons of her dress; her
chin, a very long and pointed feature, seemed to elongate itself
immensely as her mouth fell; she sucked in the sides of her thin
cheeks, and looked with a helpless imploring gaze from Julia to me.

"You have no chops, I suppose?" I interpreted the beseeching gaze.

She had no chops, she confessed.

"What have you, then?" the unpitying Julia persisted. "What have you
got for our breakfast tomorrow? for our dinner? You have provided
something, no doubt?"

The hollows in each meagre cheek of the caretaker deepened, the effect
of the still further elongating of her chi