“The Lord preserve us from these greedy men!” said Miss Jean. “The water’s in his e’en over his friar’s chicken; which is as wasteful a dish and as extravagant as any I know. You must try to put up with my poor Jess’s plain roast and boiled. It will be a trial, no doubt; but I must go and give her her orders,” said the old lady, marching downstairs with her cane tapping on every step. She went to the kitchen, and stirred up the artist there, whose powers were anything but contemptible, by sarcastic descriptions of her nephew’s tastes. “You would think to hear him that nobody could dress a decent dish but yon woman at Pitcomlie,” Miss Jean said, artfully, “and he’s very great on fish, and thinks none of us know how to put a haddie on the table. It’s not pleasant for an honest woman like you that have been born among haddies, so to speak, Jess; but you must not mind what an epicure like that may say. For my part, I’m always very well pleased with your simple dishes.” “Simple dishes! my certy!” said Jess to herself, when her mistress had withdrawn; and being thus pitted against her important rival at Pitcomlie, the _cordon-bleu_ of the High Street went to work with such a will, that Mr. Charles was smitten with wonderment and humiliation. “It is wonderful the talent that is hidden in out-of-the-way places,” he said afterwards, when describing this feast; and when you reflect that he did not know what sort of cook was awaiting him in St. Andrews, and did know that the good woman in George Square was good for nothing beyond an occasional chop, it may be supposed that his pretensions in presence of Miss Jean were considerably lessened. This gave Mr. Charles more thought than that other matter of the necessity of marrying Marjory. Now that Marjory belonged as it were to himself, forming indeed the very first of his conditions of existence, he did not see the necessity of any change. He said to himself, as her father had once said, “No husband would be so considerate of her as I am. She will never get so much of her own way again,” and felt that the suggestion that Marjory should be married was an impertinence especially offensive to himself. That could be dismissed, however, with little ceremony. It was a more serious matter about the cook. Some weeks, however, elapsed before the removal to St. Andrews was effected, and in those weeks things went very badly with the household at Pitcomlie. Fleming, being further aggravated after Mr. Charles’s departure, decided upon leaving at once instead of waiting for the term, which had been his first intention.