“How long do you boil it?”
“Oh, two hours, sometimes more.”
“Do you mind my boiling it to-night?”
Mrs. Lennox stared. She had some confidence in Molly, yet cabbage for dinner—and it was now after five—was something absurd.
“But it won’t be done.”
“Oh yes, I see the kettle is full and boils. I am quite sure you won’t believe me unless I show you; but I do assure you there is no unpleasant odor about, cabbage boiled as the English boil it, and in Europe it is considered the most wholesome of vegetables.”
Mrs. Lennox listened politely.
“I will get a cabbage, of course.” She left the kitchen for the purpose, and Molly smiled. She knew Mrs. Lennox was thinking what others less polite had said to her, “but we like our cabbage very well done,” as if Molly must prefer it half raw.
Molly had cut from the bones of roast and boiled mutton quite a large dish of meat, and the onions being tender she poured off the water from them, put to them a table-spoonful of butter and one of flour, with salt and pepper. As she was stirring them about, Mrs. Lennox brought in the cabbage, and cutting away leaves and part of core as Molly directed, laid it in water, and half filled a good-sized pot with boiling water and set it on the range.
“For your six-o’clock dinner it must be well drained and go into that water at half past five.”