the front; and
as to permission, I mean to do without.'

'YOU cook?' said Mrs Wilfer. 'YOU, who never cooked when you were at
home?'

'Yes, Ma,' returned Bella; 'that is precisely the state of the case.'

She girded herself with a white apron, and busily with knots and pins
contrived a bib to it, coming close and tight under her chin, as if it
had caught her round the neck to kiss her. Over this bib her dimples
looked delightful, and under it her pretty figure not less so. 'Now,
Ma,' said Bella, pushing back her hair from her temples with both hands,
'what's first?'

'First,' returned Mrs Wilfer solemnly, 'if you persist in what I cannot
but regard as conduct utterly incompatible with the equipage in which
you arrived--'

('Which I do, Ma.')

'First, then, you put the fowls down to the fire.'

'To--be--sure!' cried Bella; 'and flour them, and twirl them round, and
there they go!' sending them spinning at a great rate. 'What's next,
Ma?'

'Next,' said Mrs Wilfer with a wave of her gloves, expressive of
abdication under protest from the culinary throne, 'I would recommend
examination of the bacon in the saucepan on the fire, and also of the
potatoes by the application of a fork. Preparation of the greens will
further become necessary if you persist in this unseemly demeanour.'

'As of course I do, Ma.'

Persisting, Bella gave her attention to one thing and forgot the
other, and gave her attention to the other and forgot the third, and
remembering the third was distracted by the fourth, and made amends
whenever she went wrong by giving the unfortunate fowls an extra spin,
which made their chance of ever getting cooked exceedingly doubtful. But
it was pleasant cookery too. Meantime Miss Lavinia, oscillating between
the kitchen and the opposite room, prepared the dining-table in the
latter chamber. This office she (always doing her household spiriting
with unwillingness) performed in a startling series of whisks and bumps;
laying the table-cloth as if she were raising the wind, putting down
the glasses and salt-cellars as if she were knocking at the door, and
clashing the knives and forks in a skirmishing manner suggestive of
hand-to-hand conflict.

'Look at Ma,' whispered Lavinia to Bella when this was done, and they
stood over the roasting fowls. 'If one was the most dutiful child in
existence (of course on the whole one hopes one is), isn't she enough
to make one want to poke her with something wooden, sit