“I spoke of that to Dr. Tolbridge once.  ‘Begging your pardon, sir,’ said I, ‘it seems to me that you never drive out except when you have to.’  ‘Which is true,’ said he, ‘because I have to do it so much.’  ’You will excuse me, sir, for saying so,’ said I, ’but if you did things for pleasure sometimes, your mind would be rested, and you would feel more like comprehending the deliciousness of some of my special dishes, which I notice you now and again say nothing about, because you are so hungry when you eat them, you don’t notice their savoriness.’”

“La Fleur,” said Mrs. Drane, “I am surprised that you should have spoken to the doctor in that way.”

“Oh, I have a mind,” said La Fleur, “and I must speak it.  My mind is like a young horse—­if I don’t use it, it gets out of condition; and I don’t fear to speak to the doctor.  He has brains, and he knows I have brains, and he understands me.  He said something like that when I left him, and I am sure I never could have had a night’s rest since if I hadn’t put a good woman there in my place.  With what Mary Woodyard knows already, and with me to pop in on her whenever I can coax Michael to drive me to town, the doctor should never have need for any of his own medicines, so far as digestion goes.”

“Don’t you think,” interpolated Miriam, “that there is a great deal more said and done about eating than the subject is worth?”

Mrs. Drane looked a little anxiously at La Fleur, but the cook did not in the least resent the remark.

“You are young yet, Miss Miriam,” she said; “but when you are older, you will think more of the higher branches of education, the very topmost of which is cookery.  But it’s not only young people, but a good many older ones, and some of them of high station, too, who think that cooking is not a fit matter for the intellect to work on.  When I lived with Lady Hartleberry, she said over and over to my lord, and me too, that she objected to the art works I sent up to the table, because she said that the human soul ought to have something better to do than to give itself up to the preparation of dishes that were no better to sustain the body than if they had been as plain as a pike-staff.  But I didn’t mind her; and everything that Tolati or La Fleur ever taught me, and everything I invented for myself, I did in that house.  My lady was an awfully serious woman, and very particular about public worship:  and on Sunday morning she used to send the butler around to every servant with a little book, and in that he put down what church each one was going to, and at what time of day they would go.  But when he came to me, I always said, ’La Fleur goes to church when she likes and where she chooses.’  And the butler, being a man of brains, set down any church and time that happened to suit his fancy, and my lady was never the wiser; and if I felt like going to church, I went, and if I didn’t, I didn’t.  But when the family went to their seat in Scotland,