Page:The Climber (Benson).djvu/35

Rh "Very well then," she said, "if you don't mind, we won't play any more tennis till after the parties. Perhaps you would like one game first this afternoon."

Lucia smiled.

"With you?" she asked. "Yes, with pleasure. And isn't it lunch-time, don't you think? I am so hungry."

Aunt Catherine consulted a warming-pan watch which she hauled out from some receptacle in her dress like a bucket from a well.

"Just lunch-time," she said. "Elizabeth ordered cheesecake. I remembered you liked them." Then her reserve gave way a little.

"I'm glad you've come home, Lucia," she said, "whether you are sorry to leave London or not." And the moment it was said, she realized how ill-said it was.

There was a new cook at Fair View Cottage, a very godly woman, as Aunt Elizabeth so rightly desired, but her godliness did not lead to any notable results as regarded food, unless inefficiency in a supreme degree can be considered notable. But she said responses so loudly at family prayers in the morning, and followed Aunt Elizabeth's reading in the Bible with so diligent a forefinger, that, as she truly observed, it showed a small spirit to mind about the bacon, and she thought Catherine would have been above it. But to-day the cheesecakes were above Elizabeth as well; the pastry resisted the most determined assaults without showing signs of fracture, and Catherine, in whose mouth mysterious alterations had lately been made, had to conceal hers under the bowl of her spoon, after swallowing with effort and misgiving what she had in her mouth.

This did not escape Elizabeth's eye.

"I am sorry you did not like the cheesecakes that I ordered at your request, Catherine," she said. "Poor Mrs. Inglis, I am sure, did her best, but I will tell her you are dissatisfied with her cooking."

"Try one yourself," said Catherine. "See if you can make an impression on it."

"I have already eaten well and sufficiently, Catherine," said she. "It is not my habit to do more than that. No doubt Lucia agrees with you."

"The pastry is rather tough, Aunt Elizabeth," said Lucia.

"I was afraid you would find our poor house very rough and