“There were about a dozen of us girls in the kitchen, and for want of knowing better, we all fell to squabbling as to who could make the best puff-pastry, and we grew that spiteful against each other that from saying ugly things about each other’s pastry, we finished by saying them about each other.
“There, we got to such high words that I can’t tell where it would have ended if grandmother had not come into the kitchen and stopped us, short and sharp.
“ ‘Now, listen,’ ” she said, “ ‘this very evening, when the rest of the cooking is all done, I’ll have each one of you make a bit of pastry after your own fashion, and the piece that I say turns out the best shall be called the best in this house for ever after. So now not another sound from any of you chattermags till your pastry has been into the oven and out of it again.’
“And though we all in turn tried to make the old lady say that our own particular recipe was bound to turn out the best, she had only one answer for us all:
“ ‘Tarry the baking, and then the best will be called the best.’ ”
“And was yours the best?” asked Fay.
“No, my dear, my cousin Rachel it was who won the day. But grandmother’s saying of ‘tarry the baking’ came to be our favourite proverb ever after whenever we were tempted to be over hasty in settling how any matter was going to turn out. And so,” wound up Mrs. Busson, “that is what I say to you, my dears, don’t spoil everything by being in too great a hurry to make a king amongst you. Just wait patiently, and all give each other a fair chance, and then, when you’ve really settled it amongst yourselves, we’ll have a grand day. Trust me to make you a regular feast, with junkets, and syllabubs, and all manner of good things. And I wouldn’t be surprised that when the day comes you’ll all have done so well that you’ll have to be crowned kings and queens together. And now,” added Mrs. Busson, moving to the door, “I’ll go and see if Rob has brought in the half sieve of cherries that I thought wouldn’t come amiss to you staying indoors this wet evening.” And though as Mrs. Busson disappeared, the elders of the party agreed that “all being crowned kings and queens together” was not exactly the object that they had in view, they all, Andrew only excepted, fully concurred in the wisdom of her recommendation to “tarry the baking.”
CHAPTER XII.
“LIVE PURE, SPEAK TRUTH, RIGHT WRONG.”
THE next day, directly breakfast was over, there was a solemn meeting in the Cuckoo copse, to consider the further details in the development of Phoena’s scheme.
“There’s only one thing that I want to say,” said Di.