cousin Henry shall come and join his friends here in Yorkshire. I daresay she partly does it to oblige Robert and myself."
"How to oblige Robert and you?" inquired Caroline.
"Why, my child, you are dull. Don't you know—you must often have heard"
"Please, ma'am," said Sarah, opening the door, "the preserves that you told me to boil in treacle—the congfiters, as you call them—is all burnt to the pan."
"Les confitures! Elles sont brûlées? Ah, quelle négligence coupable! Coquine de cuisinière—fille insupportable!"
And Mademoiselle, hastily taking from a drawer a large linen apron, and tying it over her black apron, rushed "éperdue" into the kitchen, whence—to speak truth—exhaled an odour of calcined sweets rather strong than savoury.
The mistress and maid had been in full feud the whole day, on the subject of preserving certain black cherries, hard as marbles, sour as sloes. Sarah held that sugar was the only orthodox condiment to be used in that process; Mademoiselle maintained—and proved it by the practice and experience of her mother, grandmother, and great grandmother—that treacle, "mélasse," was infinitely preferable. She had committed an imprudence in leaving Sarah in
