"I know what that is for," said Mary, hurriedly: "to harden the outside, and make a case to keep in the juice."
"Quite right, Mary," said Mrs. Herbert, smiling. "In ten minutes, however, we will push the slide out again, and that will admit the fresh air, slightly cool the oven, and allow the fumes to escape. Always recollect, however, that the oven must be hot. We need a good hot oven for roasting meat."
"Cook has put two dripping-tins here," said Margaret. "We do not want two tins."
"Yes, we do. To use two tins is another way of preventing the taste of the oven which is so objectionable. Usually I should use what is called a hot-water tin for baking meat. That is a tin made for the purpose, with a place inside for holding hot water. I shall not do so to-day, however, because I want to show you how to manage when there is no hot-water tin. See, I lay two or three thick sticks in the larger of the two tins, and put the smaller tin inside the other. Then I fill the bottom tin with hot water. I put this small stand in the uppermost tin, and place the meat on this, and then I put the whole affair into the oven."
"But what is the good of it all?" said Margaret.
"This is the good: when the meat has been a little while in the oven, the fat will melt, and will fall into the dripping-tin."
"I know that," said Margaret.
"Well, then, if we were to let the meat lie in the tin, don't you think it would get soaked in fat? Of course it would, and that wouldn't be agreeable."
"And the hot water: what is that for?"
"If we were to leave a tin containing melted dripping in a hot oven it would get brown, burnt, smoky, and disagreeable?"