'And welcome, my dear.' The old lady was safely launched on her favourite topic. 'And if you'd like a seed-cake as well, you shall have it. Have you put down any butter yet?' Hazel never put down or preserved or made anything. Her most ambitious cooking was a rasher and a saucepan of potatoes. 'I dunna know what you mean,' she said awkwardly. Edward was disappointed. He had thought her such a paragon. 'Well, well, cooking was, after all, a secondary thing. Let it go.' 'You mean to say you don't know what putting down butter is, my poor child? But perhaps you go in for higher branches? Lemon-curd, now, and bottled fruit. I'm sure you can do those?' Hazel felt blank. She thought it best to have things clear. 'I canna do naught,' she said defiantly. 'Now, mother'--Edward came to the rescue again--'see how right you are in saying that a girl's education is not what it used to be! See how Hazel's has been neglected! Think what a lot you could teach her! Suppose you were to begin quite soon?' 'A batter,' began Mrs. Marston, with the eagerness of a philosopher expounding her theory, 'is a well-beaten mixture of eggs and flour. Repeat after me, my dear.' 'Eh, what's the use? _He_ dunna know what he eats no more than a pig! I shanna cook for 'im.' 'Who's that, dear?' Mrs. Marston inquired. 'My dad.' Mrs. Marston held up her hands with the mock-fur knitting in them, and looked at Edward with round eyes. 'She says her father's a--a pig, my dear!' 'She doesn't mean it,' said he loyally, 'do you, Hazel?' 'Ah, and more!' The host and hostess sighed. Then Edward said: 'Yes, but you won't always be keeping house for your father, you know,' and found himself so confused that he had to go and fetch a pipe. Afterwards he walked part way home with Hazel, and coming back under the driving sky--that seemed to move all in a piece like a sliding window, and showed the moon as a slim lady waiting for unlooked-for happenings--he could have wept at the crude sweetness of Hazel. She was of so ruthless an honesty towards herself as well as others; she had such strange lights and shadows in her eyes, her voice, her soul; she was so full of faults, and so brimming with fascination. 'Oh, God, if I may have her to keep and defend, to glow in my house like a rose, I'll ask no more,' he murmured.