“At the Dining-rooms,” said Mrs. Wragge.  “He was the hungriest and the loudest to wait upon of the lot of ’em.  I made more mistakes with him than I did with all the rest of them put together.  He used to swear—­oh, didn’t he use to swear!  When he left off swearing at me he married me.  There was others wanted me besides him.  Bless you, I had my pick.  Why not?  When you have a trifle of money left you that you didn’t expect, if that don’t make a lady of you, what does?  Isn’t a lady to have her pick?  I had my trifle of money, and I had my pick, and I picked the captain—­I did.  He was the smartest and the shortest of them all.  He took care of me and my money.  I’m here, the money’s gone.  Don’t you put that towel down on the table—­he won’t have that!  Don’t move his razors—­don’t, please, or I shall forget which is which.  I’ve got to remember which is which to-morrow morning.  Bless you, the captain don’t shave himself!  He had me taught.  I shave him.  I do his hair, and cut his nails—­he’s awfully particular about his nails.  So he is about his trousers.  And his shoes.  And his newspaper in the morning.  And his breakfasts, and lunches, and dinners, and teas—­” She stopped, struck by a sudden recollection, looked about her, observed the tattered old book on the floor, and clasped her hands in despair.  “I’ve lost the place!” she exclaimed helplessly.  “Oh, mercy, what will become of me!  I’ve lost the place.”

“Never mind,” said Magdalen; “I’ll soon find the place for you again.”

She picked up the book, looked into the pages, and found that the object of Mrs. Wragge’s anxiety was nothing more important than an old-fashioned Treatise on the Art of Cookery, reduced under the usual heads of Fish, Flesh, and Fowl, and containing the customary series of recipes.  Turning over the leaves, Magdalen came to one particular page, thickly studded with little drops of moisture half dry.  “Curious!” she said.  “If this was anything but a cookery-book, I should say somebody had been crying over it.”

“Somebody?” echoed Mrs. Wragge, with a stare of amazement.  “It isn’t somebody—­it’s Me.  Thank you kindly, that’s the place, sure enough.  Bless you, I’m used to crying over it.  You’d cry, too, if you had to get the captain’s dinners out of it.  As sure as ever I sit down to this book the Buzzing in my head begins again.  Who’s to make it out?  Sometimes I think I’ve got it, and it all goes away from me.  Sometimes I think I haven’t got it, and it all comes back in a heap.  Look here!  Here’s what he’s ordered for his breakfast to-morrow:  ’Omelette with Herbs.  Beat up two eggs with a little water or milk, salt, pepper, chives, and parsley.  Mince small.’—­There! mince small!  How am I to mince small when it’s all mixed up and running?  ’Put a piece of butter the size of your thumb into the frying-pan.’—­Look at my thumb, and look at yours! whose size does she mean?  ’Boil, but not brown.’—­If it mustn’t be brown, what color must it be?