The doctor's wife could not restrain a little laugh.
"No," she said, "there is to be nothing more, unless you will take a little tea."
Miss Panney pushed back her chair and looked at her hostess. "Tea after a meal like that! I should think not. If you had had champagne during the luncheon, and coffee afterwards, I shouldn't have been surprised."
"I did not order coffee," said Mrs. Tolbridge, "because we don't take it in the middle of the day, but—"
"You ordered quite enough," said her visitor, severely; "and I will say this for Kipper, that he never got up a better meal, although—"
"Kipper!" interrupted Mrs. Tolbridge. "Kipper had nothing to do with this luncheon. It was prepared by my new cook. It is the first meal she has given us, and I am so sorry the doctor could not be here to eat it."
Miss Panney rose from her chair, and gazed earnestly at Mrs. Tolbridge.
"What cook?" she asked, in her deepest tones.
"Jane La Fleur," was the reply; "the woman you urged me to write to. I sent the letter that afternoon. Yesterday she came to see me, and I engaged her. And while we were at breakfast this morning, she arrived with her boxes, and went to work."
"And she cooked that meal? She herself made all those things?"