Eliza was rather taken aback.
“Well, you see, Miss,” she said, “at the college we used nothing but fireless cookers, and I don't understand these old-fashioned stoves very well. I wanted to get you to explain it to me.”
“It's perfectly simple,” said Kathleen. “This is the oven, and when you want to bake anything—Phew!” she cried, opening the oven door, “what have you got in here?”
She took a cloth, and lifted out of the oven a tall china pitcher with a strange-looking object protruding from it.
Eliza was panic stricken, and for an instant forgot her role.
“My God! I put the hare in there and forgot all about it. What a bally sell!”
Kathleen removed the hideous thing, hardly knowing whether to laugh or cry.
“Look here, Eliza,” she said. “They may jug hares that way at Maggie Hall, but I doubt it. Now, what can you cook? We've got guests coming to-night. A gentleman from America is going to be here and we must put our best foot forward.”
Eliza's face was a study in painful emotion.
“Excuse me, Miss,” she said, “but is that American gentleman called Mr. Blair?”