was one of the deprivations of her life.  That old woman upstairs had not lived very long with the Dranes, and yet she regarded them with a positive affection.  Miriam knew this from what she had heard.  If they were in trouble, and needed her, she would come to them and serve them wherever they were.  This she had told them often.  How different was such a woman from Phoebe or Molly Tooney!  How happy would she be if there had been such a one in her mother’s family, and were she with her now!

“But I have only Ralph,” thought Miriam; “no one else in the world.”  Ralph was good,—­no human being could be better; but he was only one person, and knew nothing of many things she wanted to know, and could not help her in many ways in which she needed to be helped.

With a feeling that from certain points of view she was rather solitary and somewhat forsaken, she went to look for her brother.  It would be better to talk to what she had than to think about what she had not.

As she walked toward the barn and pasture fields, Ralph came up from the cornfield by the woods on the other side of the house.  As he went in he met Mrs. Drane and La Fleur, who had just come downstairs.  Cicely had already retired to her work.  At the sight of the gentleman, who, she was informed, was the master of the house, La Fleur bowed her head, cast down her eyes, smiled and courtesied.

Mrs. Drane drew Ralph aside.

“That is La Fleur, who used to be our cook.  She is a kind old body, who takes the greatest interest in our welfare.  She is greatly pleased to find us in such delightful quarters, but she has queer notions, and now she wants very much to call on your cook.  I don’t know that this is the right thing, and I have been looking for your sister, to ask her if she objects to it, but I think she is not in the house.”

“Oh, bless me!” exclaimed Ralph, “she will not mind in the least.  Let the good woman go down and see Molly Tooney, and if she can give her some points about cooking, I am sure we shall all be delighted.”

“Oh, she would not do that,” said Mrs. Drane.  “She is a very considerate person; but I suppose, in any house, her instincts would naturally draw her toward the cook.”

When Ralph turned to La Fleur, and assured her that his sister would be glad to have her visit the kitchen, the old woman, who had not taken her eyes from him for an instant, thanked him with great unction, again bowed, courtesied, smiled, and, being shown the way to the kitchen, descended.

Molly Tooney, who was sitting on a low stool, paring potatoes, looked up in amazement at the person who entered her kitchen.  It was not an obsequious old woman she saw, but a sedate, dignified, elderly person, with her brows somewhat knitted.  Throwing about her a glance, which was not one of admiration, La Fleur remarked,—­

“I suppose you are the cook of the house.”

“Indade, an’ I am,” said Molly, still upon the stool, with a knife in one hand, and a potato, with a long paring hanging from it, in the other; “an’ the washer-woman, an’ the chambermaid, an’ the butler, too, as loike as may be.  An’ who may you be, an’ which do you want to see?”