Under this title I refer to a lady whom I will call Mrs. Legion, for there are many of her all over the country, bless her conservative old heart. She has been in service as cook or cook-housekeeper most of her life (she is now getting on in years), and constant preoccupation with kitchen affairs has somewhat narrowed her outlook, so that the circumvention of the butcher, whose dominant idea (she believes) is to provide her with indifferent joints, is more to her than the defeat of HINDENBURG; and so far as she is concerned the main theatre of the War is neither Europe nor the Atlantic, but the coal merchant's yard, which disgorges its treasure so grudgingly. Not only is her first thought for her cooking, in order--the transition to her second thought is automatic--that her employer or employers may be comfortable; but it is her last thought too. With such singleness of purpose to crystallize her, she cannot absorb even the gravest of warnings; not from unwillingness or stupid obstinacy, but from sheer inability to grasp any novelty. That her beloved master and mistress--either or both--should not have the best of everything and plenty of it is, at this advanced stage in her career, unthinkable. Even though she read it in print she would disregard it, for her attitude to them papers is sceptical; even Lord NORTHCLIFFE, with all his many voices, dulcet or commanding, has wooed in vain. I imagine that the milkman, from whom she heard of the War and whom she thinks (for his class) a sagacious fellow, has warned her against the Press. Anyway she has refused--and will, I fancy, never relent--to allow any extreme idea of food shortage to disturb her routine. "Look here, Mrs. Legion," you say, "really, you know"--you don't like, or you have lost the power, to be too firm with her after all these years of friendliness--"really we mustn't have toast any more." "Not toast!" "No, not any more. In fact"--a light laugh here--"I'm going to do without bread altogether directly." "Do without bread!" This with much more alarmed surprise than if you had declared your intention of forswearing clothes. "Yes; the Government want us to eat less bread. In fact we must, you know; and toast is particularly wasteful, they say." "There's no waste in this house, Sir [or 'M]." This with a touch of acerbity, for Mrs. Legion is not without pride. "No one can ever accuse me of waste. I'm not vain, but that I will say." "No, no," you hasten to reply, "of course not; but things have reached such a point, you know, that even the strictest economy and care have got to be made more strict. That's all. And toast has to be stopped, I'm afraid." "Very well, Sir [or 'M], if you wish it. But I can't say that I understand what it all means."