Mr Dyce cleaned his glasses and chuckled. “H’m,” said he, “I admit there are exceptions. But please pass me my slippers, Bell: I fall back on Colin Cleland,—you’re both right and you’re both wrong.”
Miss Bell was so put about at this that she went at once to the kitchen to start her niece on a course of cookery.
CHAPTER XX.
“Katerin!” she said, coming into the kitchen with a handful of paper cuttings, and, hearing her, the maid’s face blenched.
“I declare I never broke an article the day!” she cried protestingly, well accustomed to that formal address when there had been an accident among her crockery.
“I wasn’t charging you,” said her mistress. “Dear me! it must be an awful thing a guilty conscience! I was thinking to give you—and maybe Lennox, if she would not mind—a lesson or two in cookery. It’s a needful thing in a house with anything of a family. You know what men are!”
“Fine that!” said Kate. “They’re always thinking what they’ll put in their intervals, the greedy deevils! beg your pardon, but it’s not a swear in the Gaelic.”
“There’s only one Devil in any language, Kate,” said Miss Bell. “‘How art thou fallen from Heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning!’ And I am glad to think he is oftener on our foolish tongues than in our hearts. I have always been going to give you a cookery-book—”
“A cookery-book!” cried the maid. “Many a time I saw one out in Colonsay: for the minister’s wife had one they called Meg Dods, that was borrowed for every wedding. But it was never much use to us, for it started everything with ‘Take a clean dish,’ or ‘Mince a remains of chicken,’ and neither of them was very handy out in the isle of Colonsay.”
Miss Bell laid out her cuttings on the dresser—a mighty pile of recipes for soups and stews, puddings and cakes, sweetmeats, and cordial wines that could be made deliciously from elder and mulberry, if hereabouts we had such fruits to make them with. She had been gathering these scraps for many years, for the household column was her favourite part of the paper after she was done with the bits that showed how Scotsmen up in London were at the head of everything, or did some doughty deed on the field of war. She hoarded her cuttings as a miser hoards his notes, but never could find the rich sultana cake that took nine eggs, when it was wanted, but only the plain one costing about one-and-six. Sometimes Ailie would, in mischief, offer to look through the packet for recipes rich and rare that had been mentioned; they were certainly there (for Bell had read them gloatingly aloud when she cut them out), but Bell would never let her do it, always saying, “Tuts! never mind; Dan likes this one better, and the other may be very nice in print but it’s too rich to be wholesome, and it costs a bonny penny. You can read in the papers any day there’s nothing better for the health than simple dieting.” So it was that Mr Dyce had some monotony in his meals, but luckily was a man who never minded that, liking simple old friends best in his bill-of-fare as in his boots and coats and personal acquaintances. Sometimes he would quiz her about her favourite literature, pretending a gourmet’s interest for her first attempt at something beyond the ordinary, but never relished any the less her unvarying famous kale and simple entremets, keeping his highest praise for her remarkable breakfasts. “I don’t know whether you’re improving or whether I am getting used to it,” he would say, “but that’s fish! if you please, Miss Bell.”