“Perhaps not,” said the other, “but I like to see things to eat look pretty.”  And she did her best to shape the little rolls into such forms that they might please the eye of Mr. Ralph as well as satisfy his palate.

Miriam went up to the dining-room to arrange the table.  While doing this she saw Ralph approaching from the barn.  In the kitchen, below, Dora, glancing out of the window, also saw him coming, and pulling her sunbonnet well forward, she applied herself more earnestly to her work.  Ralph came in, tired and warm, and threw himself down on a long horse-hair sofa in the hall.

“Heigh ho, Miriam,” he cried; “hay-making is a jolly thing, all the world over, but I have had enough of it for to-day.  How are you getting on, little one?  Don’t put yourself to too much trouble about my supper.  Only give me enough of whatever you have; that is all I ask.”

“Ralph,” said Miriam, standing gravely by him, “I did not have to get supper all by myself; there is a new girl in the kitchen.”

“Good,” cried Ralph; “I am very glad to hear that.  When did she come?”

“This afternoon,” said Miriam, “and she is cooking supper now.  But, Ralph,” she continued, “there is hardly any wood in the kitchen.  We have—­she has used up nearly all that was brought in this morning.”

“Well,” said Ralph, “there is plenty of it cut, in the woodhouse.”

“But, Ralph,” said Miriam, “I don’t like to ask her to go after the wood, herself, and some is needed now.”

“Mike is just as busy as he can be down at the barn,” said her brother, “and I cannot call him now.  If you show her the woodhouse, she can get what she wants with very little trouble, and Mike will bring in a lot of it to-night.”

“But, Ralph,” persisted his sister, “I don’t want to ask her to stop her cooking and go out and get wood.  It does not look like good management, for one thing, and for other reasons I do not want to do it.  Don’t you think you could bring her some wood?  Just a little basketful of short sticks will do.”

Ralph sat up and knitted his brows.  “Miriam,” said he, “if your new cook is the right sort of a woman, she ought to be able to help herself in emergencies of this kind, with the woodhouse not a dozen yards from the kitchen.  But as she is a stranger to the place, and I don’t want to discourage anybody who comes to help you, I will get some wood for her, but I must say that it does not look very well for the lord of the manor to be carrying fuel to the cook.”

“It isn’t the lord of the manor,” cried Miriam; “it is the head hay-maker, and when you dress yourself for supper, she will never think of you as the man who brought in the wood.”

Dora, from the kitchen window, saw Ralph go out to the woodhouse, and she saw him returning with an arm-load of small sticks.  Then she turned her back to the kitchen door, and bent her head over a beefsteak she was preparing for the gridiron.