Molly helped Mrs. Bishop off with her cloak, which was so handsome as to look strangely out of place in that simple cottage room, and then said, “If you will excuse me, I will send you up some hot water and give orders for luncheon.”
“Thank you, thank you; don’t let me keep you; and please don’t make any preparation.”
“No, I will not; I must only see that sufficient for three persons instead of one is on the table.”
She ran down-stairs, took Marta’s rolling-pin out of her hand, told her to take a pitcher of water up-stairs, and rolled the noodle-paste till she returned.
“Marta, directly your noodles are made, go to Mrs. Framley’s and ask her to please telephone to the fishmonger for a quarter of a hundred oysters in the deep shell, to be sent here for one o’clock. Be as quick as you can, and when you come back you will find on the dining-room table full written instructions for what you are to do.”
Molly went to the parlor and found Mr. Bishop reading his paper.
“Go on reading for a minute, please; I will write a line. I know if you have not got through the morning news you will be glad to do it.”
“I just glanced at the money market at breakfast, and I’ve too much respect for my eyes to read in the cars.”
Molly went to the davenport and wrote Marta’s instructions. Her first impulse had been to use her materials for dinner, to have the frozen bananas for dessert; but on second thought she resolved to give just what she meant to have for her own lunch, with oysters to make enough; the bread was fresh and very good; therefore she wrote the following:—
“Make the cold bean soup boiling hot, boil one egg hard and cut it in quarters lengthwise, then across; lay it in the soup-tureen and pour the soup on it. Cut four thin slices of lemon and drop them in as it comes to table. When the oysters come, set them, in their shells, in a dripping-pan; put on each a bit of butter, size of a hazel-nut; pepper them and set them over the fire till the liquor in the shells bubbles; watch till the butter melts, then they are done; take them off the fire immediately. Use a cloth to put them on a hot dish; take care you do not spill the gravy. Serve with hot plates.