"Yes, my lady."
"By whose permission?"
"By--I don't understand," said the cook, a stolid sort of woman in ordinary, with a placid face, though very great in her own department.
"Who is it that allows all this?"
Still the woman did not quite comprehend. The scale of living at the Red Court Farm was so profuse, that the servants in point of fact could eat what they pleased.
"Sometimes the eatables is varied, my lady."
"But--does Mr. Thornycroft know of this extravagance going on? Is he aware that you sit down to such a breakfast?"
Cook could not say. He did not trouble himself about the matter. Yes, now she remembered, the justice had come in when they were at breakfast and other meals.
"Who has been the manager here?--who has had the ordering of things?" inquired my lady, in a suppressed passion.
"Sinnett, chiefly. Once in a way the justice would give the orders for dinner; a'most never," was the reply.