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She and I had our breakfast together before he was up, so that when he came down he had to have his alone, but afterwards she comes into the kitchen and closes the door.

“He wants to show me the way to High Wycombe,” she says. “He will have it there are better shops at Wycombe. What ought I to do?”

My experience is that advising folks to do what they don’t want to do isn’t the way to do it.

“What d’you think yourself?” I asked her.

“I feel like going with him,” she says, “and making the most of every mile.”

And then she began to cry.

“What’s the harm!” she says. “I have heard him from a dozen platforms ridiculing class distinctions. Besides,” she says, “my people have been farmers for generations. What was Miss Bulstrode’s father but a grocer? He ran a hundred shops instead of one. What difference does that make?”

“When did it all begin?” I says. “When did he first take notice of you like?”

“The day before yesterday,” she answers. “He had never seen me before,” she says. “I was just ‘Cook’–something in a cap and apron that he passed occasionally on the stairs. On Thursday he saw me in my best clothes, and fell in love with me. He doesn’t know it himself, poor dear, not yet, but that’s what he’s done.”

Well, I couldn’t contradict her, not after the way I had seen him looking at her across the table.

“What are your feelings towards him,” I says, “to be quite honest? He’s rather a good catch for a young person in your position.”

“That’s my trouble,” she says. “I can’t help thinking of that. And then to be ‘Mrs. John Parable’! That’s enough to turn a woman’s head.”

“He’d be a bit difficult to live with,” I says.

“Geniuses always are,” she says; “it’s easy enough if you just think of them as children. He’d be a bit fractious at times, that’s all. Underneath, he’s just the kindest, dearest–“

“Oh, you take your basket and go to High Wycombe,” I says. “He might do worse.”

I wasn’t expecting them back soon, and they didn’t come back soon. In the afternoon a motor stops at the gate, and out of it steps Miss Bulstrode, Miss Dorton–that’s the young lady that writes for him–and Mr. Quincey. I told them I couldn’t say when he’d be back, and they said it didn’t matter, they just happening to be passing.

“Did anybody call on him yesterday?” asks Miss Bulstrode, careless like–“a lady?”

“No,” I says; “you are the first as yet.”

“He’s brought his cook down with him, hasn’t he?” says Mr. Quincey.

“Yes,” I says, “and a very good cook too,” which was the truth.

“I’d like just to speak a few words with her,” says Miss Bulstrode.

“Sorry, m’am,” I says, “but she’s out at present; she’s gone to Wycombe.”

“Gone to Wycombe!” they all says together.

“To market,” I says. “It’s a little farther, but, of course, it stands to reason the shops there are better.”

They looked at one another.

“That settles it,” says Mr. Quincey. “Delicacies worthy to be set before her not available nearer than Wycombe, but must be had. There’s going to be a pleasant little dinner here to-night.”

“The hussy!” says Miss Bulstrode, under her breath.

They whispered together for a moment, then they turns to me.

“Good afternoon, Mrs. Meadows,” says Mr. Quincey. “You needn’t say we called. He wanted to be alone, and it might vex him.”

I said I wouldn’t, and I didn’t. They climbed back into the motor and went off.

Before dinner I had call to go into the woodshed. I heard a scuttling as I opened the door. If I am not mistaken, Miss Dorton was hiding in the corner where we keep the coke. I didn’t see any good in making a fuss, so I left her there. When I got back to the kitchen, cook asked me if we’d got any parsley.