y.

"There should be, if there isn't. Perhaps the good God thinks that the
men will take care that there are kitchens, without His help." She
hobbled briskly into the house. Helene sat for a few minutes with hands
folded, her small nose alert as a rabbit's to the marvelous blend of
odors in the hot sunshiny air.

It was a very agreeable place, that old French garden. There had been a
kitchen-garden on that very spot for more than five hundred years; at
least, so said Monsieur Lescarbot the lawyer, and he knew all about the
history of the world. A part of the old wall had been there in the days
of the First Crusade, and the rest looked as if it had. When Henry of
Navarre dined at the Guildhall, before Ivry, they had come to Jacqueline
for poultry and seasoning. She could show you exactly where she gathered
the parsley, the thyme, the marjoram, the carrots and the onion for the
stuffing, and from which tree the selected chestnuts came. A white hen
proudly promenading the yard at this moment was the direct descendant of
the fowl chosen for the King's favorite dish of _poulet en casserole_.

But the common herbs were far from being all that this garden held.
Besides the dozen or more herbs and as many vegetables which all cooks
used, there were artichokes, cucumbers, peppers of several kinds,
marigolds, rhubarb, and even two plants of that curious Peruvian
vegetable with the golden-centered creamy white flowers, called
po-te-to. Jacqueline's husband, who had been a sea-captain, had brought
those roots from Brazil, and she,--Helene,--who was very little then,
had disgraced herself by gathering the flowers for a nosegay. It was
after that that Jacqueline had begun to teach her what each plant was
good for, and how it must be fed and tended. Helene had grown to feel
that every plant, shrub or seedling was alive and had thoughts. In the
delightful fairy tales that Monsieur Marc Lescarbot told her they were
alive, and talked of her when they left their places at night and held
moonlight dances.

Lescarbot's thin keen face with the bald forehead and humorous eyes
appeared now at the grille in the green door. He swept off his beret and
made a deep bow. "Mademoiselle la bien-aimee de la bonne Sainte Marthe,"
he said gravely, "may I come in?"

He had a new name for her every time he came, usually a long one. "But
why Sainte Marthe?" she asked, running to let him in.

"She is the patron saint of cooks and housewives, petite. A