"My dear Miriam!" exclaimed Dora, "what is a supper in comparison with such a jolly bit of fun as this? Let me go on as the new cook. And now we must hurry and get these things on the table. It will make things a great deal easier for me, if they can eat before it is time to light the lamps." When Miriam went to call the gentlemen to supper, the doctor said to her:-- "Your brother has told me that you have a new servant, and that she is so preposterous as to wish to take her meals with you, but that he does not intend to allow it. Now, I say to you, as I said to him, that if she expected to sit at the table before I came, she must do it now. I am used to that sort of thing, and do not mind it a bit. In the families of the farmers about here, with whom I often take a meal, it is the custom for the daughter of the family to cook, to wait on the table, and then sit down with whomever may be there, kings or cobblers. I beg that you will not let my coming make trouble in your household." Miriam looked at her brother. "All right," said Ralph, with a smile, "if the doctor does not mind, I shall not. And now, do let us have something to eat." CHAPTER XIII DORA'S NEW MIND When Ralph Haverley made up his mind to agree to anything, he did it with his whole soul, and if he had had any previous prejudices against it, he dismissed them; so as he sat at supper with the doctor and his sister he was very much amused at being waited upon by a woman in a pink sunbonnet. That she should wear such a head-covering in the house was funny enough in itself, but the rest of her dress was also extremely odd, and she kept the front of her dark projecting bonnet turned downward or away, as if she had never served gentlemen before, and was very much overpowered by bashfulness. But for all that she waited very well, and with a light quickness of movement unusual in a servant. "I am afraid, doctor," said Miriam, when the pink figure had gone downstairs to replenish the plate of rolls, "that you will miss your dinner. I have heard that you have a most wonderful cook." "She is indeed a mistress of her art," replied the doctor; "but you do very well here, I am sure. That new cook of yours beats Phoebe utterly. I know Phoebe's cooking." "But you must not give her all the credit," exclaimed Miriam; "I made that bread, although she shaped it into rolls. And I helped with the beefsteak, the potatoes, and the coffee." "Which latter," said Ralph, "is as strong as if six or seven women had made it, although it is very good." The meal went on until the two hungry men were satisfied, Miriam being so absorbed in Dora's skilful management of herself that she scarcely thought about eating. There was a place for the woman in pink, if she chose to take it, but she evidently did not wish to sit down. Whenever she was not occupied in waiting upon those at the table, she bethought herself of some errand in the kitchen.