"I don't like the look of them," whispered Jemima. "Let us go away." She took me to the kitchen. Sarah, Mary, and the cook were in it; the latter a tall, stout woman, with a rosy colour and black eyes. Her chief concern seemed to be for the dinner. "Look here," she exclaimed to Jemima, as she stood over her saucepans, "everything's a-spiling. Who's to know whether they'll have it served in one hour or in two?" "I should think they wouldn't have it served at all," returned Jemima: "that sight in the hall's enough dinner for them to-day, one would suppose. The police are come now." "Ah, it is bad, I know," said the cook. "And the going to look at it took everything else out of my head, worse luck to me! I forgot my soles were on the fire, and when I got back they were burnt to the pan. I've had to skin 'em now, and put 'em into wine sauce. Who's this coming in?" It was Miss Delves. The cook appealed to her about the dinner. "It won't be eatable, ma'am, if it's kept much longer. Some of the dishes is half cold, and some's dried up to a scratchin'." "There's no help for it, cook; you must manage it in the best way you can," was Miss Delves's reply. "It is a dreadful thing to have happened, but I suppose dinner must be served all the same for the master and Mrs. Edwin Barley." "Miss Delves, is it true what they are saying—that it was Mr. Heneage who did it?" inquired Sarah. "Suppose you trouble yourself with your own affairs, and let alone what does not concern you," was Miss Delves's reprimand. She left the kitchen. Jemima made a motion of contempt after her, and gave the door a bang. "She'll put in _her_ word against Mr. Heneage, I know; for she didn't like him. But I am confident it was never he that did it—unless his gun went off accidental." For full an hour by the clock we stayed in the kitchen, uninterrupted, the cook reducing herself to a state of despair over the uncalled-for dinner. The men-servants had been sent out, some to one place, some to another. The cook served us some coffee and bread-and-butter, but I don't think any one of us touched the latter. I thought by that time my aunt must surely have come in, and asked Jemima to take me upstairs to her. A policeman was in the hall as we passed across the back of it, and Charlotte Delves and Mr. Martin were sitting in the dining-room, the door open. Mrs. Edwin Barley was nowhere to be found, and we went back to the kitchen. I began to cry; a dreadful fear came upon me that she might have gone away for ever, and left me to the companionship of Mr. Edwin Barley. "Come and sit down here, child," said the cook, in a motherly way, as she placed a low stool near the fire. "It's enough to frighten her, poor little stranger, to have this happen, just as she comes into the house." "I say, though, where can the mistress be!" Jemima said to her, in a low tone, as I drew the stool into the shade and sat down, leaning my head against the wall.