ness
and solicitude.

However I was alarmed at this show of eagerness and disturbance, and
however my curiosity was excited by such busy preparations as
naturally promised some great event, I was yet too much a stranger to
gratify myself with inquiries; but, finding none of the family in
mourning, I pleased myself with imagining that I should rather see a
wedding than a funeral.

At last we sat down to supper, when I was informed that one of the
young ladies, after whom I thought myself obliged to inquire, was
under a necessity of attending some affair that could not be
neglected: soon afterward my relation began to talk of the regularity
of her family and the inconvenience of London hours; and at last let
me know that they had purposed that night to go to bed sooner than was
usual, because they were to rise early in the morning to make
cheesecakes. This hint sent me to my chamber, to which I was
accompanied by all the ladies, who begged me to excuse some large
sieves of leaves and flowers that covered two-thirds of the floor, for
they intended to distil them when they were dry, and they had no other
room that so conveniently received the rising sun.

The scent of the plants hindered me from rest, and therefore I rose
early in the morning with a resolution to explore my new habitation. I
stole unperceived by my busy cousins into the garden, where I found
nothing either more great or elegant than in the same number of acres
cultivated for the market. Of the gardener I soon learned that his
lady was the greatest manager in that part of the country, and that I
was come hither at the time in which I might learn to make more
pickles and conserves than could be seen at any other house a hundred
miles round.

It was not long before her ladyship gave me sufficient opportunities
of knowing her character, for she was too much pleased with her own
accomplishments to conceal them, and took occasion, from some
sweetmeats which she set next day upon the table, to discourse for two
long hours upon robs and jellies; laid down the best methods of
conserving, reserving, and preserving all sorts of fruit; told us with
great contempt of the London lady in the neighbourhood, by whom these
terms were very often confounded; and hinted how much she should be
ashamed to set before company, at her own house, sweetmeats of so dark
a colour as she had often seen at Mistress Sprightly's.

It is, indeed, the great business of her life to watc