“Nellie dear,” said Mr. Vernon, the principal solicitor in Riversmouth, to his nineteen year old daughter and housekeeper, “I have just run across to tell you that young Squire Laurence is riding over to consult me this morning, and I should like to bring him in to lunch at half-past one. Can you manage it?”

For a moment dismay ran riot in pretty Nellie’s heart. Nearly ten o’clock already, nothing to speak of in the house, and a smart luncheon to provide, as well as the schoolboys’ early dinner! However, she must do her best, and answered cheerfully to that effect.

“It need not be grand, you know,” added her father encouragingly, “so long as everything is nice and tasteful, as you so well understand how to make it.”

Nellie had been on her way to practise, but she now returned to the kitchen, and, resuming her big apron, surveyed the larder for the second time that morning. Ten minutes earlier, yesterday’s underdone leg of mutton re-roasted, with some vegetables, and the remains of yesterday’s pudding, with the addition of a homely roly-poly, had been deemed sufficient for the one o’clock meal, and as Mr. Vernon was dining out that evening, the butcher had been dismissed without orders. Economy was a stern necessity to Nellie, whose housekeeping allowance was not unlimited.

Accustomed to making “something out of nothing,” the cold remnants did not look as hopeless to her as they might to some young housekeepers. A cold whiting, the badly-roasted mutton, and a bowl containing about half a pint of tomato sauce, represented absolute riches to Nellie’s mind at that moment, and she quickly collected her materials and set to work in the kitchen.

The menu she drew up was as follows:—

The maid was despatched with orders for the milkman and greengrocer, and a basket in which to bring back a pound of cold salt beef in slices from the pastrycook’s, half-a-dozen scallop-shells, and two lemons.

In the meantime Nellie began the creams, which she knew must have plenty of time to cool, and for this reason decided to make them in cups. There was only a quart of milk in the house; a pint of it she put into a bowl with half an ounce of gelatine, and left it to soak for half an hour, whilst she made the rest into a custard, and stood the jug containing it in cold water to facilitate its cooling.

She next prepared a small bowl of breadcrumbs, and finely flaked the whiting, removing the bones. Then Mary having returned with the things, Nellie peeled a small quarter of one of the lemons very thin, and put milk, gelatine, lemon-peel and five ounces of white sugar into a lined saucepan on the fire.