“Oh, so good.  Antoinette has been teaching me how to cook, and I can make a rice pudding.  It is so nice to cook things.  I like the smell.  But I burned myself.  See.”

She pulled off her glove and showed me a red mark on her hand.  I kissed it to make it well, and she laughed and was very happy.  And I, too, was happy.  Something new and fresh and bright has come into my life.  Stenson is an admirable servant; but his impassive face and correct salute which have hitherto greeted me at London railway termini, although suggestive of material comfort, cannot be said to invest my arrival with a special atmosphere of charm.  Carlotta’s welcome has been a new sensation.  I look upon the house with different eyes.  It was a pleasure, as I dressed for dinner, to reflect that I should not go down to a solemn, solitary meal, but would have my beautiful little witch to keep me company.

July 22d.

It appears that her conduct has not been by any means irreproachable.  Miss Griggs reported that she took advantage of my absence to saturate herself with scent, one of the most heinous crimes in our domestic calendar. Mulier bene olet dum nihil olet is the maxim written above this article of our code.  Once when she disobeyed my orders and came into the drawing-room reeking of ylang-ylang, I sent her upstairs to change all her things and have a bath, and not come near me till Antoinette vouched for her scentlessness.  And “Ah, monsieur,” I remember Antoinette replied, “that would be impossible, for the sweet lamb smells of spring flowers, de son naturel.”  Which is true.  Her use of violent perfumes is thus a double offence.  “There is something more serious,” said Miss Griggs.

“I can hardly believe there can be anything more serious than making one’s self detestable to one’s fellow-creatures,” said I.

“Unless it is making one’s self too agreeable,” said Miss Griggs, pointedly.

I asked her what she meant.

“I have discovered,” she replied, “that Carlotta has been carrying on a clandestine flirtation with the young man who calls for orders from the grocer’s.”

“I am glad it wasn’t the butcher’s boy,” I murmured.

Miss Griggs giggled in a silly way, as if I were jesting.  At my stern request she recovered and unfolded the horrible tale.  She had caught Carlotta kissing her hand to him.  She had also seen him smuggle a three-cornered note between Carlotta’s fingers, and Carlotta had definitely refused to surrender the billet-dour.

“What is the modern course of treatment,” I asked, “prescribed for young ladies who flirt with grocers’ assistants?  In Renaissance times she could be whipped.  The wise Margaret of Navarre used to beat her daughter, Jeanne d’Albrecht, soundly for far less culpable lapses from duty.  Or she could be sent to a convent and put into a cell with rats, or she could be bidden to attend at a merry-making where the chief attraction was roast grocer’s assistant.  But nowadays—­what do you suggest?”