“I am Madame La Fleur,” said the other, with a stateliness that none of her mistresses ever supposed that she possessed.  “I came to see Mrs. Drane, in whose service I was formerly engaged, and I wish to know for myself what sort of a person was cooking for the ladies whose meals I used to prepare.”

Molly put down her knife and her half-pared potato, and arose.  She had heard of La Fleur, whose fame had spread through and about Thorbury.

“Sit down, mum,” said she.  “This isn’t much of a kitchen, for I haven’t had time to clane it up, an’ as for me, I’m not much of a cook, nather; for when ye have to be iverything, ye can’t be anything to no great ixtent.”

La Fleur, still standing, looked at her severely.

“How often do you bake?” she asked.

“Three times a week,” answered Molly, lying.

“The ladies upstairs,” said La Fleur, “have been accustomed to fresh rolls every morning for their breakfast.”

“An’ afther this, they shall have ’em,” said Molly, “Sundays an’ weekday, an’ sorry I am that I didn’t know before that they was used to have ’em.”

“How do you make your coffee?” asked La Fleur.

Molly looked at her hesitatingly.

“I am very keerful about that,” she said.  “I niver let it bile too much—­”

“Ugh!” exclaimed La Fleur, raising her hand.  “Tell your mistress to get you a French coffee-pot, and if you don’t know how to use it, I’ll come and teach you.  I shall be here off and on as long as Mrs. Drane stops in this house.”  And then, seating herself, La Fleur proceeded to put Molly through an elementary domestic service examination.

“Well,” said the examiner, when she had finished, “I think you must be the worst cook in this part of the country.”

“No, mum, I’m not,” said Molly.  “There was one here afore me, a nager woman named Phoebe, that must have been worse, from what I’m told.”

“Where I have lived,” said La Fleur, “they have such women to cook for the farm laborers.”

“Beggin’ your pardon, mum,” said Molly, “that’s what they are here, or th’ same thing.  Mr. Haverley, he works on the farm with a pitchfork, jest like the nager man.”

“Don’t talk to me like that!” exclaimed La Fleur.  “Mr. Haverley is a gentleman.  I have lived enough among gentlemen to know them when I see them, and they can work and they can play and they can do what they please, and they are gentlemen still.  Don’t you ever speak that way, again, of your master.”

“I thought I had heard, mum,” said Molly, “that you looked down on tradespeople and the loike.”

“Tradespeople!” said the other, scornfully.  “A gentleman farmer is very different from a person in trade; but I can’t expect anything better from a woman who boils coffee, and never heard of bouillon.  But remember the things I have told you, and thank your stars that a cook as high up in the profession as I am is willing to tell you anything.  Are you the only servant in this house?”