y of its shelter.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE IMPROVISED DINNER.

You housewives who know the important meaning of a roast, who know the
difficulties which sometimes overwhelm you, especially when you must
improvise a dinner; you who know that notwithstanding all inspiration,
both of understanding and inclination--yet inspiration is necessary to
all improvisation--one cannot inspire either chickens or heath-cocks to
come flying into the important dish, when the crust is ready to put on
it;--you housewives who have spent many a long morning in thoughts of
cookery and in anguish, without daring to pray the Lord for help,
although continually tempted to do so; you can sympathise in Elise's
troubles, as she, on the morning of this important dinner, saw the
finger of the clock approach twelve without having been able to
improvise a roast.

It is true that an improvised dinner might do without a roast: this we
grant as a general law; but in the case of this particular dinner, we
deny it altogether, in proof of which we might easily give the
arrangement of the whole dinner, did we not flatter ourselves that we
are believed on our bare word. Beyond this, the Judge was a declared
lover of a roast, and of all kinds of animal food, which circumstance
increased still more Elise's difficulty; and as if to make difficulty
still greater, Elise, on this very day, was remarkably in want of
assistants, for her husband had sent out, on his own business, those
servants who, on extraordinary occasions, Elise found very good help.
The cook, too, was confused to-day in a remarkable manner; the children
were in a fermentation; Eva and Leonore quarrelled; Petrea tore a hole
in her new frock; Henrik broke a water-bottle and six glasses; the baby
cried and screamed for nothing; the clock was on the stroke of twelve,
and no roast would come!

Elise was just on the point of falling into despair over roasts, cooks,
the dinner, the child, nay, over the whole world, when the door opened,
and the words, "your most devoted servant," were spoken out shrilly and
joyously, and the widow of the Court Chamberlain--to Elise she seemed an
angel of light from heaven--stood in the room, with her beaming friendly
countenance, took out of her monstrous reticule one chicken after
another, and laid them upon the table, fixing her eye on Elise, and
making with each one a little curtsey to her, upon which she laughed
heartily. Enraptured by the sight, Elise embr