the
place."

"Never mind," said Magdalen; "I'll soon find the place for you again."

She picked up the book, looked into the pages, and found that the
object of Mrs. Wragge's anxiety was nothing more important than an
old-fashioned Treatise on the Art of Cookery, reduced under the usual
heads of Fish, Flesh, and Fowl, and containing the customary series of
recipes. Turning over the leaves, Magdalen came to one particular page,
thickly studded with little drops of moisture half dry. "Curious!" she
said. "If this was anything but a cookery-book, I should say somebody
had been crying over it."

"Somebody?" echoed Mrs. Wragge, with a stare of amazement. "It isn't
somebody--it's Me. Thank you kindly, that's the place, sure enough.
Bless you, I'm used to crying over it. You'd cry, too, if you had to get
the captain's dinners out of it. As sure as ever I sit down to this book
the Buzzing in my head begins again. Who's to make it out? Sometimes
I think I've got it, and it all goes away from me. Sometimes I think I
haven't got it, and it all comes back in a heap. Look here! Here's what
he's ordered for his breakfast to-morrow: 'Omelette with Herbs. Beat up
two eggs with a little water or milk, salt, pepper, chives, and parsley.
Mince small.'--There! mince small! How am I to mince small when it's all
mixed up and running? 'Put a piece of butter the size of your thumb into
the frying-pan.'--Look at my thumb, and look at yours! whose size does
she mean? 'Boil, but not brown.'--If it mustn't be brown, what color
must it be? She won't tell me; she expects me to know, and I don't.
'Pour in the omelette.'--There! I can do that. 'Allow it to set, raise
it round the edge; when done, turn it over to double it.'--Oh, the
number of times I turned it over and doubled it in my head, before you
came in to-night! 'Keep it soft; put the dish on the frying-pan, and
turn it over.' Which am I to turn over--oh, mercy, try the cold towel
again, and tell me which--the dish or the frying-pan?"

"Put the dish on the frying-pan," said Magdalen; "and then turn the
frying-pan over. That is what it means, I think."

"Thank you kindly," said Mrs. Wragge, "I want to get it into my head;
please say it again."

Magdalen said it again.

"And then turn the frying-pan over," repeated Mrs. Wragge, with a sudden
burst of energy. "I've got it now! Oh, the lots of omelettes all frying
together in my head; and all frying wrong! Much obliged, I'm sure.
You've