Dido Clawbonny was the cook of the family, and the mother of Chloe.  Whatever hypercriticism might object to her colour, which was a black out of which all the gloss had fairly glistened itself over the fire, no one could deny her being full blown.  Her weight was exactly two hundred, and her countenance a strange medley of the light-heartedness of her race, and the habitual and necessary severity of a cook.  She often protested that she was weighed down by “responserbility;” the whole of the discredit of overdone beef, or under-done fish, together with those which attach themselves to heavy bread, lead-like buckwheat-cakes, and a hundred other similar cases, belonging exclusively to her office.  She had been twice married, the last connection having been formed only a twelvemonth before.  In obedience to a sign, this important lady now approached.

“Welcome back, Masser Mile,” Dido began with a curtsey, meaning “Welcome back from being half-drowned;” “ebberybody so grad you isn’t hurt!”

“Thank you, Dido—­thank you with all my heart.  If I have gained nothing else by the ducking, I have gained a knowledge of the manner in which my servants love me.”

“Lor’ bless us all!  How we help it, Masser Mile?  As if a body can posserbly help how lub come and go!  Lub jest like religion, Masser Mile—­some get him, and some don’t.  But lub for a young masser and a young missus, sah—­dat jest as nat’ral, as lub for ole masser and ole missus.  I t’ink nut’in’ of neider.”

Luckily, I was too well acquainted with the Clawbonny dialect to need a vocabulary in order to understand the meaning of Dido.  All she wished to express was the idea that it was so much a matter of course for the dependants of the family to love its heads, that she did not think the mere circumstance, in itself, worthy of a second thought.

“Well, Dido,” I said, “how does matrimony agree with you, in your old age?  I hear you took a second partner to yourself, while I was last at sea.”

Dido let her eyes fall on the deck, according to the custom of all brides, let their colour be what it may; manifested a proper degree of confusion, then curtsied, turned her full moon-face so as to resemble a half-moon, and answered, with a very suspicious sort of a sigh—­

“Yes, Masser Mile, dat jest so.  I did t’ink to wait and ask ’e young masser’s consent; but Cupid say”—­not the god of love, but an old negro of that name, Dido’s second partner—­“but Cupid say, ’what odd he make to Masser Mile; he long way off, and he won’t care:’  and so, sah, rader than be tormented so by Cupid, one had altogedder better be married at once—­dat all, sah.”

“And that is quite enough, my good woman; that everything may be in rule, I give my consent now, and most cheerfully.”

“T’ankee, sah!” dropping a curtsey, and showing her teeth.

“Of course the ceremony was performed by our excellent rector, good Mr. Hardinge?”