"Is that you, Hannah Snow?" cried the cook, stepping forward to meet the other as she came up the path. "And how are you to-day? Do you want anything?"
Catching the name, Lady Level looked out more closely. She saw a tall, strong, respectable woman of middle age, with a smiling, happy face, and laughing hazel eyes. She wore a neat white cap, a clean cotton gown and gray-checked apron.
"Yes, cook," was the answer, given in a merry voice. "I want you to give me a handful of candied peel. I am preparing a batch of cakes for my old man, never supposing I had not all the ingredients at hand, and I find I have no peel. I'm sure I had some; and I tell John he must have stolen it."
"What a shame!" cried the cook, taking the words more literally than they were intended. Mrs. Snow laughed.
"Fact is, I suppose I used the last of it in the bread-and-butter pudding I made last week," said she.
"You are always making cakes for that man o' yours, seems to me, Hannah," grumbled the cook. "We can smell them over here when they're baking, and that's pretty often."
"Seems I am: he's always asking for them," assented Hannah. "He likes to eat one now and then between meals, you see.
"Well, he's a rare one for his inside," retorted the cook, as she went in for the candied peel.
"They seem to do very much as they like here," was the only thought that crossed Lady Level.
On this same day Lord Level, who had grown so much better as to be out of danger, dismissed his doctor. Presenting him with a handsome cheque, he told him that he required no further attendance. Blanche received the news from Mrs. Edwards.