"Potted or jugged hare famous!" said the ravens, and they laughed hoarsely.
"Be quiet, be quiet, or the wizard will catch you!" she said in a warning tone.
Now the dinner was all ready on the stove. Potatoes she had dug out of the garden. "Hare and carrots and stewed plums, what can anyone want more?" she thought, and felt very proud. But suddenly soup occurred to her. How could she make soup? She had heard that soup was made of bones and water; but she had no bones, and those nice little halfpenny packets for making soup out of nothing were not invented in those days.
She put on some hot water with a few carrots and a little chopped parsley in it and plenty of pepper and salt. She tasted it, as a good cook should, and said to herself: "Not bad, I have tasted worse."
She laid the table, and punctually at one o'clock the man came in. Babette trembled. He proceeded at once to business; that is, he sat down to dinner.
Soup came first, which was unfortunate. "Bah!" he said, making a horribly wry face, "what stuff, child, do you want to make me sick?"
"No-o-o," said poor Babette.
"Never make such soup again, or I shall fetch my sister, and she will cook you," he said with a terrible look.
However the hare was tender, and when a pot of red-currant jelly produced itself, seemingly from nowhere, it was quite a fine dinner.
The carrots were hard, and "not scraped," as the wizard said severely. "Plums too much sugar."