There was nothing to regret for a fortnight. Fate seemed on my side, and during two blissful weeks 'Enrietter proved herself a paragon among "generals." She was prettier in her little white cap than in her big feathered hat, and her smile was never soured by the friction of daily life. Her powers as a cook had not been over-estimated; the excellence of her coffee had been undervalued; for her quickness and readiness to work, the elderly maiden ladies had found too feeble a word. There wasn't anything troublesome she wouldn't and didn't do, even to providing me with ideas when I hadn't any and the butcher's, or green-grocer's, boy waited. And it was the more to her credit because our chambers were in a chaotic condition that would have frightened away a whole staff of the right sort of servants. We had just moved in, and the place was but half furnished. The British Workman still lingered, as I began to believe he always would,--there were times, indeed, when I was half persuaded we had taken our chambers solely to provide him a shelter in the daytime. My kitchen utensils were of the fewest. My china was still in the factory in France where they made it, and I was eating off borrowed plates and drinking out of borrowed cups. I had as yet next to no house-linen to speak of. But 'Enrietter did not mind. She worked marvels with what pots and pans there were, she was tidy enough not to mislay the borrowed plates and cups, she knew just where to take tablecloths and napkins and have them washed in a hurry when friends were misguided enough to accept my invitation to a makeshift meal. If they were still more misguided and took me by surprise, she would run out for extra cutlets, or a salad, or fruit, and be back again serving an excellent little lunch or dinner before I knew she had gone. This was the greater comfort because I had just then no time to make things better. I was deep, beyond my habit, in journalism. A sister I had not seen for ten years and a brother-in-law recovering from nervous prostration were in town. Poor man! What he saw in our chambers was enough to send him home with his nerves seven times worse than when he came. J., fortunately for him, was in the South of France, drawing cathedrals. That was my one gleam of comfort. He at least was spared the tragedy of our first domestic venture.