“Burning’s a thing that will happen to the best cooks once in a while.  ’Twas just day before yesterday I blacked a pumpkin pie so the doctor poked his fun at me all the time he was eating it,” said the housekeeper, with a tactful disregard for the full truth, which was that a refractory small patient in the office had driven the doctor to require her assistance for a longer period than was consistent with attention to her oven.

“Oh, did you?” asked Charlotte, eagerly.  “That encourages me.  Doctor Churchill told me he had the finest cook in the state, and I’ve been envying you ever since.”

“Doctor Churchill had better be careful how he brags,” Mrs. Fields declared, much gratified.  “Well, now, I’ll tell you what you do.  It ain’t but a step across the two back yards.  When you get in a quandary how to cook anything—­how long to give it or whether to bake or boil—­you just run across and ask me.  I ain’t one o’ the prying kind—­the doctor’ll tell you that—­and you needn’t be afraid it’ll go any further.  I know how hard it must be for a young girl like you to take the care of a house on yourself, and I’ll be pleased to show you anything I can.”

“That’s very good of you,” said Charlotte, gratefully, as Mrs. Fields went briskly down the steps; and she really felt that it was.  She would have resented the appearance of almost any of her neighbours at her back door with an offer of help, suspecting that they had come to use their eyes, and afterward their tongues, in criticism.  But something about Mrs. Hepsibah Fields disarmed her at once.  She could not tell why.

“This gingerbread is perfect,” said Celia, an hour later, when Charlotte had brought up her supper.  “You are improving every day.  But it frets me not to have you come to me for help.  I could plan things for you, and teach you all the little I know.  I’m doing so well now, the doctor says I may get down-stairs on the couch by next week.  Then you certainly must let me do my part.”

But Charlotte shook her head obstinately.  “I’m going to fight it through myself.  I’d rather.  You’ve enough to do—­writing letters.”

When Lanse came into Celia’s room that evening, his first words were merry.

“What I’m anxious to know,” he said, “is what you did with your rice pudding.  Charlotte says you ate it—­and the inference was that it was good to eat.  So I ate mine—­manfully, I assure you.  But it was a bitter dose.”

“Poor little girl!  She tries so hard, Lanse.  And the gingerbread was very good.”

“So it was.  It helped take out the taste of the pudding.  Did you honestly eat that pudding?”

“See here.”  Celia beckoned him close.  She reached a cautious hand under her pillow and drew out her soap-dish.  “Please get rid of it for me,” she whispered, “and wash the dish.  I couldn’t bear not to seem to eat it, so I slipped it in there.”

Striving to smother his mirth, Lanse bore the soap-dish away.  Returning with it, he carefully replaced the soap and set the dish on the stand, where it had been within Celia’s reach.  “I wish I had had a soap-dish at the table,” he remarked, “but the cook’s eye was upon me, and I had to stand up to it.  But see here.  I’ve a letter for you—­from Uncle Rayburn.”