Her French was far from the French of Paris, but she had the rapid Parisian gift of commentary, with a homely provincial sagacity added. The acquirement of English she disdained, but just as sailors go round the world on the one word “savvy,” so did she, with a similar economy, contrive to make herself understood in the house and the village. Indeed, she went farther than to refuse to acquire English, she forced French on us, so that, for example, we entirely gave up “going to bed”: we used instead to “alley coshy.” Rose was devoted to Suzanne and she assimilated a large number of her phrases—all of which, I knew only too well, would have to be unlearned when she came under the control of a real Mademoiselle. But for the present it was more important that the child should be happy with this broad-bosomed kindly Norman, and whatever bad pronunciation she was getting was more than compensated for by the attainment of certain secrets of the cuisine. Suzanne could not read a word, but the last atom of flavour was conserved in every dish that she sent to table; and what is literature compared with cooking? One is shadow and the other is substance. She had no culture. In vain for her had her fellow Norman, Gustave Flaubert (whose statue she had no doubt seen in Rouen), toiled all his life after the elusive epithet; but her apple-jelly was more than novels and her salads were works of art. I used to look at her, serene among her pots and pans or gathering lettuces in the garden, and reflect again how little education has to do with the real progress of the world or the happiness of mankind. Naturally enough, Hannah did not appreciate Suzanne. Like a good rural Englishwoman, she mistrusted all foreigners in general, and in the present case the feeling was aggravated by jealousy, and by pique that her own darling Rose could understand the foreigner’s gibberish where she herself could not. But the house was so managed that the two women seldom met. Hannah ate in her and Rose’s own rooms, while Suzanne rarely left the kitchen. * * * * * I have said something of Rose’s infirmary for crippled animals. With these creatures and Hannah and Suzanne and the maids and Briggs and myself, she would have had company enough; but there were others always ready to listen to her. There was, for instance, Mr. Wellicum.