With which offer Heather closing, Mrs. Piggott a week later entered the gates of Berrie Down, and virtually resumed possession of all her old authority. Amongst her goods and chattels were a Bible, a cookery book, a tea-caddy (with a key), a pair of spectacles, a work-box, and her marriage lines—all articles without which Mrs. Piggott never travelled. A staunch Protestant, Mrs. Piggott read her Bible diligently on Sundays, and on what she called particular occasions—such, for instance, as the death of a relative, the news of some frightful railway accident, shipwreck, or colliery explosion, the sickness of any member of the Berrie Down household, the birth of a child, or in times of special aggravation. But if she perused the sacred volume occasionally, she pored over her cookery book daily. From the valuable receipts it contained she had culled fragrant flowers in the shape of savoury dishes, curious puddings, wonderful sweetmeats, and a method of making puff-paste, in which even the housekeeper at Moorlands had not disdained to request instruction. And after that, for Miss Hope to come with “her foreign notions, her garlic, her shalots, her tarragon, her basil, her clear soups (like dish-water), her meat done to rags, her vegetables cooked till all flavour was boiled out of them; her fruit breakfasts, her messy salads, her pinches of flavouring, her newfangled sauces, her endless dishes, with not a good mouthful on each.” If Mrs. Piggott had not, at this trying period, found a sympathizing listener in Bessie Ormson, for want of vent her indignation must have killed her; as it was, Bessie took the keen edge off the knife that stabbed the cook, made fun of Miss Hope and Miss Hope’s stew-pans, and told poor Mrs. Piggott that the result of the French dinner had been a failure. “We all unaccountably lost our appetites,” said the young lady, slyly; “the dishes were capital, no doubt, but then, if one be not hungry, you know,” and then Miss Ormson looked archly at Mrs. Piggott, and the pair laughed wickedly. “I hope you have plenty of cold meat in the larder,” Bessie went on, “for we shall all be starving by supper time;” and these words proving prophetic, Mrs. Piggott’s anger was appeased; and next day she unbent so far as to inform Miss Hope she would not mind watching how she made “that there sauce,” for she thought it very good indeed. The conqueror can always afford to be a little generous, and in this instance Bessie held that Mrs. Piggott acquitted herself with considerable credit. “Far be it from me to say the things were in their own nature detestable,” remarked Miss Ormson to her uncle; “under the circumstances, I do not think we can tell anything about them. We don’t jump to the conclusion that an air is unmusical because an utterly incompetent person attempts to play it, and clearly, Miss Hope knows as much concerning cookery as I do.”