er intimate friend Mrs.
Mole, who had already guessed it, and who subsequently encouraged herself
in buying a mould of jelly, instead of exerting her own skill, by the
reflection that "other people" did the same sort of thing. The infection
spread; soon there was a party or clique in Grimworth on the side of
"buying at Freely's"; and many husbands, kept for some time in the dark
on this point, innocently swallowed at two mouthfuls a tart on which they
were paying a profit of a hundred per cent., and as innocently encouraged
a fatal disingenuousness in the partners of their bosoms by praising the
pastry. Others, more keen-sighted, winked at the too frequent
presentation on washing-days, and at impromptu suppers, of superior
spiced-beef, which flattered their palates more than the cold remnants
they had formerly been contented with. Every housewife who had once
"bought at Freely's" felt a secret joy when she detected a similar
perversion in her neighbour's practice, and soon only two or three old-
fashioned mistresses of families held out in the protest against the
growing demoralization, saying to their neighbours who came to sup with
them, "I can't offer you Freely's beef, or Freely's cheesecakes;
everything in our house is home-made; I'm afraid you'll hardly have any
appetite for our plain pastry." The doctor, whose cook was not
satisfactory, the curate, who kept no cook, and the mining agent, who was
a great _bon vivant_, even began to rely on Freely for the greater part
of their dinner, when they wished to give an entertainment of some
brilliancy. In short, the business of manufacturing the more fanciful
viands was fast passing out of the hinds of maids and matrons in private
families, and was becoming the work of a special commercial organ.

I am not ignorant that this sort of thing is called the inevitable course
of civilization, division of labour, and so forth, and that the maids and
matrons may be said to have had their hands set free from cookery to add
to the wealth of society in some other way. Only it happened at
Grimworth, which, to be sure, was a low place, that the maids and matrons
could do nothing with their hands at all better than cooking: not even
those who had always made heavy cakes and leathery pastry. And so it
came to pass, that the progress of civilization at Grimworth was not
otherwise apparent than in the impoverishment of men, the gossiping
idleness of women, and the heightening prospe