Mrs. Clinton glanced at the ormolu clock, representing Time with a scythe and hour-glass, on the mantelpiece, but said nothing. As it began to chime the door opened and the Rector and Mrs. Beach were announced. "Grace! Grace!" said the Squire, holding up a warning finger, but smiling affably. "I've never known you run it so fine before." "My dear Edward," said Mrs. Beach, with her sweet smile, "Tom broke a collar stud. It is one of those little accidents that nobody can foresee and nobody can guard against." "Except by laying in a stock," said Mrs. Graham. "Well, my dear Grace, you were just _not_ late," said the Squire, "I will forgive you." So they all went in to dinner amicably, and a very good dinner it was, although there was an entire absence of what the Squire called French fal-lals. English _versus_ French cooking was a favourite dinner-table topic of his, and he expatiated on it this evening. "It stands to reason," he said, "that natural food well cooked--of course it must be well cooked, before an open range, and so on--is better than made-up stuff. Now what have we got this evening?" He put on his gold-rimmed glasses and took up a menu-card. A shade of annoyance passed over his face when he discovered that it was written in French. "Who wrote this rubbish?" he asked, looking over his glasses at Mrs. Clinton. "I did, father," said Cicely, blushing. "Good for you, Siskin!" broke in Dick. "Very well done. It gives the entertainment an air." "I helped with the accents," said Angela. "Well," said the Squire, "I don't like it. As far as I can make out it's a purely English dinner, except, perhaps, the soup, and it ought to be described in English. What's the good of calling roast lamb 'agneau roti'?" He pronounced it "rotty," with an inflection of scorn. "There's no sense in it. But as I was saying--where are you going to find better food than salmon and roast lamb, new potatoes, asparagus, peas--of course they're forced, but they're English--and so on?" He threw down the card and took off his glasses. "Everything grown on the place except the salmon, which old Humphrey Meadshire sent me." "You've left out the 'Peche a la Melba'," said Mrs. Beach. "It is the crowning point of the whole dinner. But I quite agree with you, Edward, you couldn't have a better one anywhere." "Rather on the heavy side," commented Humphrey. "Not at all," said Mr. Birket. "The fruits of the earth in due season, or, if possible, a little before it; that's the best dinner any man can have." "Every country has its own cooking," said Mrs. Birket. "I really think the English is the best if it is well done." "Which it very seldom is," said Mrs. Graham. "Of course this is the very best time of all the year for it," said the Rector. "Did you bring back any new curry recipes from India, Jim?"