They chatted till Harry came home, Mrs. Welles unable to make up her mind whether Molly’s ideas were wise or foolish; as _ideas_ they were good, of course, but how would they work in practice? Mrs. Welles was too English to understand why a woman should make up her mind to put up with half service, and she had been too well off since she had been married to have learnt by experience. CHAPTER XXXIV. OX-TAIL SOUP—GRISINI—STEWED LAMB AND PEAS—MÉRINGUES WITH CREAM. MRS. WELLES’S trunk arrived the next morning and Molly found her friend had come as she said, “prepared and loaded for a kitchen campaign.” Several little things not easily obtained in a country town she had brought, and last of all she handed out a paper package. “There, Molly, I thought, perhaps, you had none, and I have two or three recipes needing the stuff, so I made sure and brought it with me.” Molly had meanwhile cut the strings and saw in the paper a thick roll of something wrapped in waxed paper. “Ah, almond paste! I wished when I was chopping almonds the other day that I had some.” The almond paste was a substance that looked, in color and appearance, like very heavy bread: it was almonds ground by machinery, and saved infinite time in preparing almonds for macaroons, cake, etc. “There, Mistress Molly, you see we are going to make goodies while I am here.” “I shall be glad to do my part and sit at your feet again.” “Nonsense, Molly, I have nothing to teach you. You were too intelligent not to see, when you had the key to a few things, that the rest was a matter of experiment and practice; but while I was in London I had some recipes given to me, vaguely written, as amateur recipes usually are, but I want to try to get them right.” Molly, mindful of her guest’s English tastes, had asked her butcher to save her two ox-tails, as they were very cheap things, and she prepared them for soup while Mrs. Welles finished her unpacking.