"Never saw a roast pig before in my life. But I have read of them."
"Read of them!" exclaimed their hostess. "In a cook-book, likely?"
"Alas! I never read a cook-book."
"No more didn't I; but you'll excuse me, I didn't believe you carried it all in your head, like we folks."
"I have not a bit of it in my head, if you mean the art of cookery. I have a profound respect for it; but I know nothing about it whatever."
"Well, you're right to have a respect for it. Uncle Tim, do you just give Mrs. Barclay some of the best of that pig, and let us see how she likes it. And the stuffing, uncle Tim, and the gravy; and plenty of the crackle. Mother, it's done just as you used to do it."
Mrs. Barclay meanwhile surveyed the company. Mrs. Armadale sat at the end of the table; placid and pleasant as always, though to Mrs. Barclay her aspect had somewhat of the severe. She did not smile much, yet she looked kindly over her assembled children. Uncle Tim was her brother; Uncle Tim Hotchkiss. He had the so frequent New England mingling of the shrewd and the benevolent in his face; and he was a much more jolly personage than his sister; younger than she, too, and still vigorous. Unlike her, also, he was a handsome man; had been very handsome in his young days; and, as Mrs. Barclay's eye roved over the table, she thought few could show a better assemblage of comeliness than was gathered round this one. Madge was strikingly handsome in her well-fitting black dress; Lois made a very plain brown stuff seem resplendent; she had a little fleecy white woollen shawl wound about her shoulders, and Mrs. Barclay could hardly keep her eyes away from the girl. And if the other members of the party were less beautiful in feature, they had every one of them in a high degree the stamp of intellect and of character. Mrs. Barclay speculated upon the strange society in which she found herself; upon the odd significance of her being there; and on the possible outcome, weighty and incalculable, of the connection of the two things. So intently that she almost forgot what she was eating, and she started at Mrs. Marx's sudden question—"Well, how do you like it? Charity, give Mrs. Barclay some pickles—what she likes; there's sweet pickle, that's peaches; and sharp pickle, that's red cabbage; and I don' know which of 'em she likes best; and give her some apple—have you got any apple sauce, Mrs. Barclay?"
"Thank you, everything; and everything is delicious."
"That's how things are gen'ally, in Mrs. Marx's hands," remarked uncle
Tim. "There ain't her beat for sweets and sours in all the country."
"Mrs. Barclay's accustomed to another sort o' doings," said their hostess. "I didn't know but she mightn't like our ways."