n for whom she was never weary of preparing surprises. As for me,
I felt miserable if any shepherd or well-to-do handsome young bachelor
cockatoo came near the place, dreading lest the wretch should have
designs on my cook's heart and hand. I rejoiced in her beard, and would
not have had her without it for worlds, as I selfishly hoped it might
stand in her matrimonial path.

This Arcadian state of kitchen affairs went on for exactly a fortnight.
One evening, at the end of that time, we had been out riding, and
returned as usual very hungry. "What are we going to have for supper?"
inquired F----. I told him what had been ordered; but when that meal
made its appearance, lo, there was not a single dish which I had named!
The things were not exactly nasty, but they were queer. For instance,
pears are not usually stewed in gravy; but they were by no means bad,
and we took it for granted it was something quite new. The housemaid,
Sarah, looked very nervous and scared, and glanced at me from time
to time with a very wistful look; but I was so delightfully tired and
sleepy--one never seemed to get beyond the pleasant stage of those
sensations--that I did not ask any questions.

Next morning, when we came out to breakfast, imagine my astonishment
at seeing a tureen of half cold soup on the table, and nothing else!
I could hardly believe my eyes, and hastened to the kitchen to explain
that this was rather too much of a novelty in the gastronomic line. If I
live to be a hundred years old, I shall never forget the sight--at once
terrible and absurd--which met my eyes. Before the kitchen fire stood
Isabella, having evidently slept in her clothes all night. She looked
wretched and bloated, and quite curiously dirty, as black as if she had
been up the chimney; and even I could see that, early as was the hour,
she was hopelessly drunk. Between both of her nerveless, black hands,
she held a poker, with which she struck, from time to time, a feeble
blow on a piled-up heap of plates, which she persisted in considering
a lump of coal. The fire was nearly out, but she hastened to assure me
that if she could only break this lump of coal it would soon burn up.
Need I say that I rescued my plates at once, and marched the bearded one
off to her own apartment.

Oh, how dimmed its dainty freshness had become since even yesterday!
Sarah was summoned, and confessed that she had known last night that
"Hisabella" had gone on the "burst," having bou