as so disappointed that she grew ugly and broke a
soap-dish.

"Aubrey," I said to the Angel, "how is your memory connected with your
stomach?"

"Very nearly," he answered, pleasantly. "My stomach reminds me of many
things,--when it's time to eat, and when it's time to drink."

"So then, if anything happened to that reminder, you might forget even
to get dinner if you were a cook, or to serve it if you were a butler?"

"Certainly."

"I see," I answered, thoughtfully.

"If I might beg to inquire the wherefore of this thirst for
information--" hazarded the Angel, politely.

"Oh, nothing much. Only Mary says she has burst her stomach, and
that's why she forgets everything."

Fortunately, Aubrey was sitting in his Morris chair. If he had flung
himself about in that manner on a bench, he would have broken his back.

"Mary," said Aubrey, when he could speak, "ought to go in a book."

"Mary," I said, with equal emphasis, "ought to go into an asylum."

It was not long after that that old Katie, the cook, came up-stairs,
and beckoned me from the room.

"You said, Mrs. Jardine, that you'd never seen butter made. Now I've
got the first churning from the Guernsey cow in the churn, and if you
would like to see it--"

She never finished the sentence, for I rushed past her so that she had
to follow me into the milk-room. (Bee wanted me to call it "the
dairy.")

I sat by while Katie churned and told stories. Then while she was
turning it out, and I was raving over the colour of it, I heard a
suspicious sniffing behind me, and behold, there was Mary, with her
apron to her eyes, murmuring, brokenly, "My poor dear mother! Oh, my
poor dear mother!"

Seeing that she had attracted my attention, she walked away, stumbling
over the threshold to emphasize her grief.

"What's the matter with Mary, Mrs. Jardine?" asked old Katie,
wonderingly.

"Her mother used to churn, she told me, and I suppose it brings it all
back to her to see you churn," I said, with as straight a face as I
could muster.

"Dear me!" said Katie, in high disgust. "_I_ had a mother and _she_
used to churn, but it doesn't turn me into salt water every time I hear
the dasher going!"

Katie is a shrewd woman, so I said nothing in answer to that. Finally
Katie lifted her chin--a way she had--and added:

"I'm thinking it sits bad on her mind to see you in here with me,
instead of with her!"

As I still said nothing, she apparently repented herse