In the meantime, however, on the morning which followed the evening already recorded, Katherine had too much to do in the way of providing for the picnic to have much time to think. Stella had darted into her room half-dressed with a number of notes in her hand to tell her that everybody was coming. “Mrs. Seton brings six including her husband and herself--that makes four fresh new men besides little Seton, whom you can talk to if you like, Kate; and there’s three from the Rectory, and five from the Villa, and old Mildmay and Shanks to do propriety for papa’s sake.” “I wish you would not speak of them in that way by their names. It does not take much trouble to say Miss Mildmay and Mrs. Shanks.” “I’ll say the old cats, if you like,” Stella said with a laugh, “that’s shorter still. Do stir up a little, and be quick and let us have a good lunch.” “How am I to get cold chickens at an hour’s notice?” said Katherine. “You seem to think they are all ready roasted in the poultry yard, and can be put in the hampers straight off. I don’t know what Mrs. Pearson will say.” “She will only say what she has said a hundred times; but it always comes right all the same,” cried Stella, retreating into her own room to complete her toilette. And this was so true that Kate finished hers also in comparative calm. She was the housekeeper _de jure_, and interviewed Mrs. Pearson every morning with the profoundest gravity as if everything depended upon her; but at bottom Katherine knew very well that it was Mrs. Pearson who was the housekeeper _de facto_, and that she, like everyone else, managed somehow that Miss Stella should have her way. “You know it’s just impossible,” said that authority a few minutes later. “Start at twelve and tell me at nine to provide for nearly twenty people! Where am I to get the chickens, not to speak of ham and cold beef and all the rest? Do ye think the chickens in the yard are roasted already?” cried the indignant housekeeper, using Katherine’s own argument, “and that I have only to set them out in the air to cool?” “You see I did not know yesterday,” said the young mistress apologetically; “it was a sudden thought of Miss Stella’s last night.” “She _is_ a one for sudden thoughts!” cried Pearson, half-indignant, half-admiring; and after a little more protestation that it was impossible she began to arrange how it could be done. It was indeed so usual an experience that the protests were stereotyped, so to speak. Everything on the Cliff was sudden--even Katherine had acquired the habit, and preferred an impromptu to any careful preparation of events. “Then if anything is wrong we can say there was so very little time to do it in,” she said with an instinct of recklessness foreign to her nature. But Mrs. Pearson was wise and prudent and knew her business, so that it was very seldom anything went wrong.