It was certainly our friend Marianne at the Hermitage, Wimbledon, to whom Mrs. Steptoe, now a free-lance, was going to apply for a cook's place. It was rather an audacious piece of effrontery; so also are two-thirds of the applications the Registry sends you on, and charges you five shillings for. Mrs. Steptoe was a very poor cook indeed; but, then, it was so long since she done any cooking reg'lar that it was easy for her to forget how poor it had been. The coincidence was not a miraculous one, and it will not appear so if you will image to yourself Mrs. Charlotte Eldridge coming down very late one morning and opening letters. Further, imagine that the contents of one takes her aback, binds her attention, and excites a sort of torpid curiosity in Mr. John Eldridge, who is just off to catch his train; but the nine thirty-eight will do if he misses it. Then that the lady throws the letter down, and says: "Well, I declare! Elizabeth Barclay, of all people in the world!" Don't try to imagine Mr. Eldridge, nor his hat, nor its band, nor the woollen comforter he buttons his coat over. It isn't worth the effort. But take the story's word for it that he said "Elizabeth Barclay?" six times, and ended with, "What's she been had up for?" "John, you're a fool! She's Marianne's cook, and she wants me to find her another. Of course!" "But what's her game? What's Marianne's cook's little game? What's she been a-takin' shares in? Where's she been selling her dripping to? Tell away, Lotty!--spit it out!" But he does not forward matters, for he again says "Elizabeth Barclay" several times, and finishes up with "Well!" "When you've done." A pause. "She's going to marry a corn-factor." Mr. Eldridge closes one eye. "Females do," he says; and then adds, quite inexplicably: "I shouldn't wonder if he was in the Brixton Road." "It doesn't matter whether he is or isn't. The question is, where am I to go to find a really good plain cook for Marianne?" "Ah!--that's the question." "Well, but you might help, instead of looking like a gaby." "Why not ask that party?" "What party?" "Over Clapham way. Some connection. Where you got Ellen Sayce." Mrs. Eldridge looks her despair, for was not Ellen Sayce a girl who wept on the stairs instead of doing them down, and had to return to her parents? Nevertheless the attempt was worth a postcard, which was written as Mr. Eldridge--whose peritonitis had gone--trotted away down a snow-swept footway slapping his gloves, and saying "Elizabeth Barclay" at intervals. But she omitted the date, as she decided not to post it then and there, but to exhaust her other resources first. Ellen Sayce was a poor result.