“Now, Uncle Joshua,” she said, when the first greetings over he had settled to his work again, “I’ve come to dinner with you, and I’ve brought it along with me, and until it’s ready you’re not to look once into the kitchen. You couldn’t never guess what it is, so you needn’t try; and you mustn’t smell it more nor you can help while it’s cooking.”
It was a proud moment for Lilac when, the fowl being roasted to a turn, the table nicely laid, and the bunch of flowers put exactly in the middle, she led the cobbler up to the feast. Even if Joshua had smelt the fowl he concealed it very well, and his whole face expressed the utmost astonishment, while Lilac watched him in an ecstasy of delight.
“My word!” he exclaimed, “its fit for a king. I feel,” looking down at his clothes, “as if I ought to have on my Sunday best.”
Lilac was almost too excited to eat anything herself, and presently, when she saw Joshua pause after his first mouthful, she enquired anxiously:
“Isn’t it good, Uncle?”
“Fact is,” he answered, “it’s too good. I don’t really feel as how I ought to eat such dillicate food. Not being ill, or weak, or anyway picksome in my appetite.”
“I made sure you’d say that,” said Lilac triumphantly; “and I just made up my mind I’d cook it without telling what it was. You’ve got to eat it now, Uncle Joshua. You couldn’t never be so ungrateful as to let it spoil.”
“There’s Mrs Wishing now,” said Joshua, stilt hesitating, “a sickly ailing body as ’ud relish a morsel like this.”
It was not until Lilac had set his mind at rest by promising to take some of the fowl to Mrs Wishing before she returned, that he was able to abandon himself to thorough enjoyment. Lilac knew then by his silence that her little feast was heartily appreciated, and she would not disturb him by a word, although there were many things she wanted to say. But at last Joshua had finished.
“A fatter fowl nor a finer, nor a better cooked one couldn’t be,” he said, as he laid down his knife and fork. “Not a bit o’ dryness in the bird: juicy all through and as sweet as a nut.”