withdraw to the kitchen immediately and take ten swallows of water.
Nellie is a good-natured old soul. I can manage her beautifully, but it took a head to do anything with Delia. Delia was the cook. I was in the butler's pantry the day before Tom and Elise arrived, putting away the family napkin-rings (for of course I know napkin-rings are tabooed) when it occurred to me that we had got to have clean napkins for every meal as long as Elise stayed. If she was with us a week that would make a hundred and sixty-eight napkins in all, counting three meals a day and eight people at the table. We owned just four dozen napkins and that meant—I figured it all out on a piece of paper—that the whole four dozen would have to be washed every other day. I went out into the kitchen and explained it to Delia just as nicely and sweetly as I could. She went off on a regular tangent. It was enough, she said, all the extra style I was planning on, without piling on a week's washing for every other day. She said she'd never heard of such tommyrot, and if a napkin was clean enough for Tom and Tom's family, she guessed it was clean enough for Tom's wife, whoever she was. I was simply incensed!
"We won't discuss it," I said with much dignity. "Not another word, please, Delia," and I left the kitchen.
I heard her slam a kettle into the iron sink, and mutter something about "another place," so I thought it better policy not to press my point. I hate being imposed upon—there isn't a teacher at the high
