Emilia rose with concern from behind the coffee cups, while Horatia lightly asked the nature of the intruder.
"I think," replied her host very seriously, bringing round the saucer for her inspection, "that it is cabbage. At least I fear that it is cabbage. Having in the first place been cooked, and having also been a long time in the water, it is not readily distinguishable. Whatever it is fever will probably come of it. And the Mother Superior promised me most solemnly that it should not happen again."
Horatia lifted puzzled eyes from the sodden speck.
"The nuns up at the Manor, dear," explained Emilia. "Our water comes through the Manor grounds, and they will throw things from the kitchen into it. Henry has written twice; at last he went himself and had an interview with the Mother Superior. Since then it has been better."
"I think I shall see the Lord Lieutenant about it," said Mr. Strangways. "That I and my family should succumb to fever because these misguided women—foreigners, too, most of them—have been brought up without the most elementary notions of sanitation is preposterous. The whole thing is preposterous, that they should be established in this country at all, polluting at once our water supply and the faith of the villagers!"
"But you will write again, Henry, will you not?" urged his wife. "Or perhaps you would go again and see the Mother?"
"No, I shall not consent to another interview of that kind," returned Mr. Strangways. "I shall now put the matter in the hands of the proper authorities. Mother, indeed! But I shall certainly write as well, and at once. I think I shall enclose this ... this vegetable matter. Would it not be rather to the point, Emilia, if I sent up the saucer with my compliments, and nothing else?"
Horatia burst out laughing, and then perceived that she had done the wrong thing. Her host did not mean to be funny; he never did. Finally it was settled that he should write a letter of protestation, and that, instead of its being sent by a menial hand, Emilia and her guest should walk up with it.
"I thought you might like to see the outside of the Manor," said Mrs. Strangways, as they started out over the fallen leaves. "You see, it once belonged to Henry's uncle, and he most unfortunately sold it, at the time of the French Revolution, to these nuns. As Henry says, he ought not to have been allowed to do it. The grounds are rather fine, much better than ours, and I don't know what they can want with them, for they never go out, and it is really very terrible to feel that they are throwing all sorts of refuse into the water, and might any day poison the children."
"But the convents I have seen in France were so very clean," objected Horatia. "And these are French nuns, you say? Why do they not go back?"