“The connection?”

“Didn’t you know?” she asked, with wide-open eyes.  “Though you were Sir Timothy’s own cousin.”

“A very distant cousin,” said John.

“But every one in the valley knows,” said Sarah, “that Sir Timothy’s father married his own cook, who was Happy Jack’s first cousin.  When I was a little girl, and wanted to tease Peter,” she added ingenuously, “I always used to allude to it.  It is the skeleton in their cupboard.  We haven’t got a skeleton in our family,” she added regretfully; “least of all the skeleton of a cook.”

John remembered vaguely that there was a story about the second marriage of Sir Timothy the elder.

“So she was a cook!” he said.  “Well, what harm?” and he laughed in spite of himself.  “I wonder why there is something so essentially unromantic in the profession of a cook?”

“Her family went to Australia, and they are quite rich people now:  no more cooks than you and me,” said Sarah, gravely.  “But Happy Jack won’t leave Youlestone, though he says they tempted him with untold gold.  And he wouldn’t touch his hat to Sir Timothy, because he was his cousin.  That was another skeleton.”

“But a very small one,” said John, laughing.

“It might seem small to us, but I’m sure it was one reason why Sir Timothy never went outside his own gates if he could help it,” said Sarah, shrewdly.  “Luckily the cook died when he was born.”

“Why luckily, poor thing?” said John, indignantly.

“She wouldn’t have had much of a time, would she, do you think, with Sir Timothy’s sisters?” asked Sarah, with simplicity.  “They were in the schoolroom when their papa married her, or I am sure they would never have allowed it.  Their own mother was a most select person; and little thought when she gave the orders for dinner, and all that, who the old gentleman’s next wife would be,” said Sarah, giggling.  “They always talk of her as the Honourable Rachel, since Lady Crewys, you know, might just as well mean the cook.  I suppose the old squire got tired of her being so select, and thought he would like a change.  He was a character, you know.  I often think Peter will be a character when he grows old.  He is so disagreeable at times.”

“I thought you were so fond of Peter?” said John, looking amusedly down on the little chatterbox beside him.

“Not exactly fond of him.  It’s just that I’m used to him,” said Sarah, colouring all over her clear, fresh face, even to the little tendrils of red hair on her white neck.

She wore a blue cotton frock, and a brown mushroom hat, with a wreath of wild roses which had somewhat too obviously been sewn on in a hurry and crookedly; and she looked far more like a village schoolgirl than a young lady who was shortly to make her debut in London society.  But he was struck with the extraordinary brilliancy of her complexion, transparent and pure as it was, in the searching sunlight.