She has the softest, cultured, sweet, English accent, which came with a little quiver of her voice when she told of a little one who died here, before there was any doctor.  The three that are left are to her as Cornelia’s jewels.

I would just give anything to bring her to New York, give her the run of the best couturieres and show her to some of our diamonds-at-breakfast dowagers.  As Harry would say, she would make them look like thirty cents.  They would perish with jealousy.  She holds the savor and fragrance of centuries of refinement.

Yesterday I went to their little church.  It was built by Mr. Barnett and the inhabitants, who cheerfully gave their labor.  Every board of it represents untold begging and saving.  It was a nice, simple, little service, in which the people were much interested and sang hymns with fervor and plenty of false notes.  My voice is hardly worth the money that has been squandered upon it, but such as it is I began to sing also.  To my intense dismay I was soon singing alone, for the rest of the congregation respectfully stopped.  Mr. Barnett looked at me most benevolently over his spectacles, but this was hardly enough to subdue my sudden stage fright.

On the day before the nice little man called on us, soon after dinner, which here is a midday function.  Before this particular feast I had apologized to Daddy for leaving him alone and going sailing for a few hours.

“That’s the worst of you women-folk,” he rebuffed me.  “Just because a fellow happens to be fond of you, you must pretend that you are entirely indispensable.  I got on very nicely, thank you, and your absence had no deleterious influence upon my leg.  There is some slight pain in it, whether you are here or not.”

“I know that the charm of my conversation makes you forget it at times,” I told him.

“I don’t deny the charm,” said Daddy, who is the most scrupulously polite man, as you know, “but just now the delight of something to eat is what I’m hankering for.”

“You are going to have Newfoundland turkey,” I told him.

Daddy looked at me incredulously, and then his countenance fell.

“Don’t tell me you are referring to codfish,” he said.

“That is the sad news,” I told him.  “It is going to be perfectly delicious, and you will have to wait a moment.”

So I turned up my sleeves and armoured myself in a blue gingham apron before invading the realm of Susie Sweetapple, who only knows how to boil things, including the tea.  Like a true artist I engaged in an improvisation.  The only really bad thing about codfish, Aunt Jennie, is its intrusive quality when it is prepared by the hundreds and thousands of quintals.  Otherwise, like eggs and potatoes, it is capable of a multiplicity of avatars.  We brought the dish back in triumph.

“Here, at last, is some return for the money squandered upon my education,” I announced.  “Aren’t you glad I took a course in cookery?”