An impatient knocking at the kitchen window interrupted his admiration, and William, turning quickly, said, "Mind you say the train was late; don't say I kept you, or you'll get me into the devil of a pickle. This way." The door let into a wide passage covered with coconut matting. They walked a few yards; the kitchen was the first door, and the handsome room she found herself in did not conform to anything that Esther had seen or heard of kitchens. The range almost filled one end of the room, and on it a dozen saucepans were simmering; the dresser reached to the ceiling, and was covered with a multitude of plates and dishes. Esther thought how she must strive to keep it in its present beautiful condition, and the elegant white-capped servants passing round the white table made her feel her own insignificance. "This is the new kitchen-maid, mother." "Ah, is it indeed?" said Mrs. Latch looking up from the tray of tartlets which she had taken from the oven and was filling with jam. Esther noticed the likeness that Mrs. Latch bore to her son. The hair was iron grey, and, as in William's face, the nose was the most prominent feature. "I suppose you'll tell me the train was late?" "Yes, mother, the train was a quarter of an hour late," William chimed in. "I didn't ask you, you idle, lazy, good-for-nothing vagabond. I suppose it was you who kept the girl all this time. Six people coming to dinner, and I've been the whole day without a kitchen-maid. If Margaret Gale hadn't come down to help me, I don't know where we should be; as it is, the dinner will be late." The two housemaids, both in print dresses, stood listening. Esther's face clouded, and when Mrs. Latch told her to take her things off and set to and prepare the vegetables, so that she might see what she was made of, Esther did not answer at once. She turned away, saying under her breath, "I must change my dress, and my box has not come up from the station yet." "You can tuck your dress up, and Margaret Gale will lend you her apron." Esther hesitated. "What you've got on don't look as if it could come to much damage. Come, now, set to." The housemaids burst into loud laughter, and then a sullen look of dogged obstinacy passed over and settled on Esther's face, even to the point of visibly darkening the white and rose complexion. II A sloping roof formed one end of the room, and through a broad, single pane the early sunlight fell across a wall papered with blue and white flowers. Print dresses hung over the door. On the wall were two pictures--a girl with a basket of flowers, the coloured supplement of an illustrated newspaper, and an old and dilapidated last century print. On the chimney-piece there were photographs of the Gale family in Sunday clothes, and the green vases that Sarah had given Margaret on her birthday.