She went into the good-sized garden at the back of the little cottage, and began with nervous, energetic fingers to pick some flowers, and to arrange them in a big nosegay.
"We will put these in the center of the supper-table," she said. "I should like to have everything as bright and cheerful as possible for your father to-night."
"Yes, that's capital," said Effie.
"We ought to have something particularly good for him to eat, Effie."
"But, mother, he said he wasn't hungry. You remember how he complained of having so many meals at The Grange."
"Yes, yes, he always was a most abstemious man; but I know what he never can resist, and that is cold raspberry tart and cream. There are plenty of raspberries ripe in the plantation—I will gather some, and I'll make the pastry for the tart myself."
"Very well, mother; but is it well for you to fag yourself picking those raspberries, and then making the tart?"
"I want to make it—I should love to make it. I used to be famed for my pastry. My mother used to say, 'You have a light hand for pastry, Mary.' I remember so well when I made my first tart. I was just fifteen—it was my fifteenth birthday. Mother showed me how to do it; and I remember how the water ran all over the pastry-board. Afterward I was the best hand at pastry in the house. Yes, I'll make the tart myself. Here is sixpence, Effie; run to the dairy and get some cream. And listen, love, as you go through the house you might tell Jane to get the pastry-board ready."
"All right, mother, I'll tell her to put it in the larder. You must not go into the hot kitchen to make that tart."
"Very well, child, I'll remember. Now run and get the cream."