t, and I jumped up and scared it off; and then the
dog strayed in and began to help itself, and I had to rush again and
chase it away. Then the unwashed baby, still in its dirty little
night-gown, brought a mug and kept dipping it into the pot to get
drinks. We're going to take a jug into the field at milking-time this
afternoon, and ensure our particular portion straight from the cow."

"I'm glad to hear it," said Morvyth, looking considerably relieved.

"Perhaps it's as well we don't see most foodstuffs in the making,"
moralized Aveline.

"Decidedly! Isn't there a story of a barrel of treacle, and a little
nigger baby being found at the bottom?"

"And an attendant who fell by mistake into the sausage machine," added
Miss Lowe, laughing. "I suppose one ought to be judiciously blind if
one is to preserve one's peace of mind."

"One may shut one's eyes, but one can't do away with one's nose!"
persisted Miss Barton. "There was the most horrible and peculiar and
objectionable odour in the hall yesterday morning, all the time I was
painting. I came to the conclusion that a rat must have died recently
behind the panelling. Then Mrs. Marsden came in with some milk-cans,
and she raised a lid from a big pot close to where I was sitting. What
do you think was inside? Twelve pounds of beef that she had put down
to pickle! I hinted that it was rather high, but she didn't seem to
perceive it in the least. She can't have the slightest vestige of a
nose!"

"Perhaps, like some tribes of Africans, she prefers her meat gamey.
Don't look so alarmed, you poor girls, it's not going to appear on our
table for dinner! I ordered a fowl."

"Which was alive only a couple of hours ago, for I saw the children
assisting to chase it wildly round the yard and catch it!" put in Miss
Barton. "We warned you, when we invited you, not to expect too much!"

Mrs. Marsden's training in the domestic arts had evidently been
defective, and her cooking was decidedly eccentric. The fowl turned up
at table plucked, certainly, but looking very pale and anaemic with
its long untrussed legs sticking helplessly out before it. It was such
an absurd object that as soon as the landlady had departed from the
room the company exploded.

"How am I to carve the wretched thing?" shrieked Miss Lowe. "I hardly
know where its wings are! I've never before seen a chicken served
absolutely _au naturel_!"

"I expect it to rise up and walk!" hinnied Miss Barton. "It seem