It was no small effort to find and produce from Bauby's pocket the bill of fare of the approaching dinner. But this document took away Miss Barbara's breath. It was some time before she got over it. Instead of the chaos which she half feared, yet half hoped for, as a means of exercising her own gifts on her nephew's behalf, it was an elaborate menu, drawn out in full form, that was placed before her eyes. The old lady was struck dumb for a moment, and when she spoke there was a certain awe in her tone. "If you can set a dinner like that on the table," she said, "I have not a word to say."
"Oh, mem, we'll manage fine," said Bauby, in her soft, round, good-humoured voice.
"Miss Barbara," said Rolls, "I'm no braggart; but I've seen a thing or two in my life. And Bauby, she has far more in her than appears. She's just a confused creature in speech; but pit her to her goblets and her sauces, and she kens well what she's about. She has the real spirit of it in her; and when her blood's up for the credit of the family——"
"Eh, mem!" cried Bauby herself, putting her apron to her eyes, for her tears came readily; "do you think I would let them say that Mr John couldna give a denner as good as the best? and he such a fine lad, and wanting a wife, and his mammaw so far away!"
"Never you mind his mammaw," cried Miss Barbara, with natural family feeling; "she was never a great manager. But if you set that dinner on the table, Bauby Rolls, you're a woman worthy of all respect, and I hope my nephew will know when he's well off."
She withdrew to the room prepared for her after this, a little crestfallen, yet doing due honour to the native powers. "We'll say nothing to Janet," she said to her faithful old maid, as she sat at her toilet. "Janet is an excellent woman, and just the right person for a house like mine. But she has not that invention. Four made dishes, besides all the solids! We'll not say a word to Janet. It would be more than she could bear."
"You see, Miss Barbara, there's two of them to settle it," said Agnes, as she brushed out the old lady's abundant white hair; "and a man is awfu' discriminating about eating and drinking. He may not have sense like a woman, but he has more taste of his mouth."
"There is something in that," said her mistress; "if it's Rolls, John has got a treasure in that man. The Cornel's dinners were always very English, to my way of thinking—but that would be their own fault; or if it's my nephew himself——" she added, doubtfully. What was a great quality in Rolls catering for other people, would have been almost a vice, in the eyes of this prejudiced old lady, in the young master of the house.
"Mr John!" said Agnes, still more moved,—"a bonnie lad like him! Na, na; it would never be that. It'll be the young misses, and not the dishes, he will be thinking about. And who knows but we may see the one that's his choice? And I wish she may be a lovely young lady for his sake."
"She would need to be something more than that," said Miss Barbara, shaking her head. "A little money would be a great advantage to the estate."