She placed a small wooden table in front of Frieda and not far from the fire and her own chair. Then she got out some heavy plates and two cups and saucers. And whatever the difference in elegance, tea is never so good served in a thin cup as in a thick one. Afterwards she opened the package containing Frieda's biscuits and jam and finally poured boiling water into her own brown stone tea kettle. Then she and Frieda, sitting on opposite sides of the tea table, talked and talked. Several times, as she sat there, Frieda thought that if she had been an English girl she would like to have had just such an old nurse or foster mother as Mrs. Huggins. For she might then have been able to confide a number of things to her--matters she could not talk about even to her sister, since she was not clear enough how she felt concerning them herself, and so Jack might get wrong impressions. "But you have not told me any special news this afternoon," Frieda protested, having lifted her cup for a second helping of tea, and making up her mind that she could not think of herself while visiting, as she usually did at home. "My sister and brother always expect me to know something interesting after a visit to you." Dame Quick poured the tea carefully. "I don't care for gossip," she returned, "yet it seems as if they like it as much in big houses as in little." Her eyes snapped, so that Frieda found herself watching them, fascinated. "Since you came in I've been wonderin' whether certain information should be sent to Lord and Lady Kent. I don't think much of it myself, as there has been such a steady stream of spy talk these months past. But they are tellin' in Granchester that there is a man there who has taken a house a short distance from the village, on the road to Kent House. It seems he keeps to himself too much to please the village. He says he has been ill, and I'm sure has a right to a mite of peace if he wants it. It's only the village that's talking. Those higher up must know things are what they should be, since they don't bother him." Frieda was scarcely listening. Mrs. Huggins' news was often uninteresting in itself. It was only that she so much enjoyed repeating it. She had already finished her second cup of tea and was looking down at the collection of tea leaves in the bottom of her cup. "Suppose you tell my fortune," she suggested rather shyly. For some time past she had been thinking of just this. "Didn't you say you sometimes told the fortunes of the boys and girls in Granchester, and that a great many things you predict come true?" The old country woman looked at Frieda sharply.