"Right good for you!" said her sister. "I'll not help at that work; I shall leave it for you. As to foreign fruits and spices, we'll have none of them, save now and then a lemon for the Lady Lettice--she loves the flavour, and we'll not have her go short of comforts--but for all else, I make no 'count of your foreign spice. Rosemary, thyme, mint, savoury, fennel, and carraway be spice enough for any man, and a deal better than all your far-fetched maces, and nutmegs, and peppers, that be fetched over here but to fetch the money out of folks' pockets: and wormwood and currant wine are every bit as good, and a deal wholesomer, than all your sherris-sack and Portingale rubbish. Hans, lad, let's have a currant-bush or two in that garden; I can make currant wine with any, though I say it, and gooseberry too. I make no count of your foreign frumps and fiddlements. What's all your Champagne but just gooseberry with a French name to it? and how can that make it any sweeter? I'll be bounden half of it is made of gooseberries, if folks might but know. And as to your Rhenish and claret, and such stuff, I would not give a penny for the lot--I'd as soon have a quart of alegar. Nay, nay! we are honest English men and women, and let us live like it." "But, Temperance, my dear," suggested Lady Louvaine, with a smile, "if no foreign fruits had ever been brought to England, nor planted here, our table should be somewhat scanty. In truth, we should have but little, I believe, save acorns and beech-nuts." "Nay, come!" responded Temperance; "wouldn't you let us have a bit of parsley, or a barberry or twain?" "Parsley!" said Lady Louvaine, smiling again. "Why, Temperance, that came first into England from Italy the year Anstace was born--the second of King Edward." [Note 3.] "Dear heart, did it so?" quoth she. "And must not we have so much as a cabbage or a sprig of sweet marjoram?" "Sweet marjoram came in when thou wert a babe, Temperance; and I have heard my mother say that cabbages were brought hither from Flanders the year my sister Edith was born. She was five years elder than I, and died in the cradle." "Well!" concluded Temperance, "then I'll hold my peace and munch my acorns. But I reckon I may have a little salt to them." "Ay, that mayest thou, and honey too." The next day, the Golden Fish swam in at the door; and it came in the form of Mistress Rookwood and her daughter Gertrude, who seemed pleasanter people than Mrs Abbott. A few days afterwards came the Rector, Mr Marshall, with his wife and daughter; and though--or perhaps because--Agnes Marshall was very quiet, they liked her best of any woman they had yet seen. Before they had stayed long, the Rector asked if Lady Louvaine had made acquaintance with any of her neighbours. She answered, only with two houses, the one on either side.