During this time Ruth had disappeared into the back kitchen, whence she brought what at first I took to be a bucket of castor-oil and a dead rabbit. With the rabbit (which turned out to be her favourite dishcloth) she then deluged the table from the contents of the bucket, and the kitchen was filled with a warm smell of wet onions. When she had “cleaned up” as she called it--which meant that after her septic operation on the table she swept the etceteras on the floor into a heap and drew the fender over them--we discussed the question of food. One of the trials of my life is the necessity for devising three relays of food immediately after a good breakfast. It makes me feel as though I were the owner of a yard full of turkeys, whom it is my painful duty to prepare for a daily Christmas. James enjoys his breakfast and forgets about it, returning after a hard day’s work to a dinner as unpremeditated as that which the ravens brought to Elijah; not so mine, which brings with it haunting memories of yesterday’s sorrows. I cannot share his enthusiasm for a _vol-au-vent_ which I have so often met before in less happy circumstances; I feel about it as an undertaker might who should meet his clients masquerading in a ballroom. James came home at one o’clock, and we went indoors at once, as he has only a short time to spare in the middle of the day. The table was not laid. “Clara,” I said, “do you know the time? We must have luncheon at once.” “I think Ruth’s just sending it up now, m’m,” she answered. “The meat only came ten minutes ago.” James spilled a good deal in his haste, but what little he was able to eat in eight minutes he was extremely good tempered about, and praised warmly. A great many men would have behaved in a manner that might have made me live and die a bad housekeeper. If he had been sulky, or violent, or sarcastic, or resigned, or dignified, I should have taken no steps whatever. My mind would have settled upon a touching picture of the sorrows of women, and how their life is one long martyrdom to the habits of men and the want of habits of domestic servants, and I should have shrugged my shoulders and acquired tastes of my own. Then this book would never have been written. As it was, my husband’s smiling farewell and his pathetic symptoms of indigestion bravely borne gave me pain that vented itself in anger against its original cause--Ruth--and behind her again the butcher. I flew into the study and poured out my wrath on a sheet of the best note-paper. “Mr. Jones, “Dear Sir, “Mrs. Molyneux is simply furious because Mr. Jones’s wretched beef did not turn up till ten minutes to one. If Mr. Jones finds himself unable to keep a clock, Mrs. Molyneux will be delighted to deal with a butcher who can.”