you since the warm weather set in?"

Martha bobbed with a more mollified air.

"Which, exceptin' the elber jints, where it's settled, likewise the
knee jints--savin' of your presence, miss--it's the same; for to go
down on my bended knees, miss, it's what I couldn't do, not if you
was to give me a thousand-pun note in my blessed hand, and my Easter
dooty not bein' able to perform, miss, which it be the first time it
ever wor the case; an' it owing to the rheumatiz; otherwise I am
better, miss, and thank you kindly."

"Her ladyship is very sorry," continued Hilda. "She is unable to
return herself just yet, but she has asked me to attend to several
matters for her, and one of them is connected with you, Martha. She
has received a letter from his lordship stating that he was bringing
with him a staff of servants, and among them a French cook."

Here Martha assumed the porcupine again, with every quill on end; but
she said nothing, though Hilda paused for an instant. Martha wished
to commit Miss Krieff to a proposition, that she might have the glory
of rejecting it with scorn. So Hilda went on:

"Your mistress was afraid that you might not care about taking the
place of under-cook where you have been head, and as she was anxious
to avoid hurting your feelings in any way, she wished me to tell you
of this beforehand."

Another moment and the apoplexy which had been threatening since the
moment when "under-cook" had been mentioned would have been a fact,
but luckily for Martha her overcharged feelings here broke forth with
accents of bitterest scorn:

"Which she's _very_ kind. Hunder-cook, indeed! which it's what I
never abore yet, and never will abear. I've lived at Chetwyn this
twenty year, gurl and woman, and hopes as I 'ave done my dooty and
giv satisfaction, which my lord were a gentleman, an' found no fault
with his wittles, but ate them like a Christian and a nobleman,
a-thankin' the Lord, and a-sayin', 'I never asks to see a tidier or a
'olesomer dinner than Martha sends, which she's to be depended on as
never bein' raw nor yet done to rags;' an' now when, as you may say,
gettin' on in years, though not that old neither as to be dependent
or wantin' in sperrit, to have a French cook set over me a talkin'
furrin languidgis and a cookin' up goodness ony knows what messes as
'nd pison a Christian stomach to as much as look at, and a horderin'
about Marthar here and Marthar there, it's what I can't consent to
pu