“It does seem so rum,” cried cook, laughing silently till her face was peony-like in hue.
“Well, you might give us a bit, cook,” said the major’s valet. “What is it?”
“They’ve—they’ve found the focus again,” cried cook, laughing now quite hysterically.
“Eh? Where?” cried Morris.
“Over at The Warren.”
“What,” cried the butler severely; “made it up? Cook, I should be sorry to say unpleasant things to any lady, but if you were a man, I should tell you that you were an old fool.”
“Well, I’m sure!” cried cook, “that’s polite, when I heered it only this morning from the butcher, who’d just come straight from The Warren, where he heered it all.”
“What? That Captain Rolph had made it up with our Miss Glynne? Rubbish, woman, rubbish! After the way he pitched the poor girl over and went off shooting, that could never be.”
“If people would not be quite so clever,” said cook, addressing the assembled staff of servants round the table, “and would not jump at things before they know, perhaps they’d get on a little better in life. As if I didn’t know that she’d never marry now. I said as the captain had made up matters with his cousin, that carrotty-headed girl who came to be bridesmaid.”
“You don’t mean it,” cried Morris.