"Cloth of gold shall be matched with cloth of frieze," said Mrs. Grahame, and in the opposite corner rose a pyramid of baked potatoes, hot and hot, wafting such an inviting smell through the air that the Colonel seized the carving-knife at once.
"Are you ready?" he demanded. "Why—where is Jack? Jack, you rascal! where have you got to?"
"Here!" cried a voice among the bushes; and Jack appeared, flushed with triumph, carrying a smoking coffee-pot. "This is my contribution," he said. "If it is only clear! I think it is."
Hildegarde held out a cup, and he poured out a clear amber stream, whose fragrance made both potatoes and peaches retire from the competition.
"You really made this?" Colonel Ferrers asked. "You, sir?"
"I, sir," replied Jack. "Biddy taught me. I—I have been practising on you for a couple of days," he added, smiling. "You may remember that your coffee was not quite clear day before yesterday?"
"Clear!" exclaimed the Colonel, bending his brows in mock anger. "I thought Lethe and Acheron had been stirred into it. So that is the kind of trick Elizabeth Beadle plays on me, eh? Scaramouche!" addressing Hugh, "you must look after this great-aunt of yours, do you hear?"
"She made the pie," said Hugh diplomatically.
"She did! she did!" cried Hildegarde, holding out her cup. "Let no one breathe a word against her. Fill up, fill up the festal cup! drop Friendship's sugar therein! two lumps, my mother, if you love me!"
"Somebody should make a poem on this pie," said Mrs. Grahame. "There never was such a pie, I believe. Hilda, you seem in poetic mood. Can you not improvise something?"