"It's SO good, Aunt Judy, do taste it!" exclaimed No. 8, jumping up in a great fuss, and holding up his little cup, full of a pale-buff fluid, to Aunt Judy.
"You'll have everything over," cried No. 4, calling him to order; and in truth the table was not the steadiest in the world.
So No. 8 sat down again, calling out, in an almost stuttering hurry, "You may keep it all, Aunt Judy, I don't want any more."
But neither did Aunt Judy, after she had given it one taste; so she put the cup down, thanking No. 8 very much, but pulling such a funny face, that it set the laugh going once more; in the middle of which No. 4 dropped an additional lump of sugar into the rejected buff- coloured mixture, a proceeding which evidently gave No. 8 a new relish for the beverage.
Aunt Judy had got beyond the age when cowslip-tea was looked upon as one of the treats of life; and she had not, on the other hand, lived long enough to love the taste of it for the memory's sake of the enjoyment it once afforded.
Not but what we are obliged to admit that cowslip-tea is one of those things which, even in the most enthusiastic days of youth, just falls short of the absolute perfection one expects from it.
Even under those most favourable circumstances of having had the delightful gathering of the flowers in the sweet sunny fields--the picking of them in the happy holiday afternoon--the permission to use the best doll's tea-service for the feast--the loan of a nice white table-cloth--and the present of half-a-dozen pewter knives and forks to fancy-cut the biscuits with--nay, even in spite of the addition of well-filled doll's sugar-pots and cream-jugs--cowslip-tea always seems to want either a leetle more or a leetle less sugar--or a leetle more or a leetle less cream--or to be a leetle more or a leetle less strong--to turn it into that complete nectar which, of course, it really IS.
On the present occasion, however, the children had clearly got hold of some other source of enjoyment over the annual cowslip-tea feast, besides the beverage itself; and Aunt Judy, glad to see them so safely happy, went off to her business at the wardrobe, while the little ones resumed their game.
"Very extraordinary, indeed, ma'am!" began one of the fancy old ladies, in a completely fancy voice, a little affected, or so. "MOST extraordinary, ma'am, I may say!"
(Here there was a renewed giggle from No. 4, which she carefully smothered in her handkerchief.)
"But still I think I can tell you of something more extraordinary still!"
The speaker having at this point refreshed his ideas by a sip of the pale-coloured tea, and the other ladies having laughed heartily in anticipation of the fun that was coming, one of them observed:-
"You don't SAY so, ma'am--" then clicked astonishment with her tongue against the roof of her mouth several times, and added impressively, "PRAY let us hear!"
"I shall be most happy, ma'am," resumed the first speaker, with a graceful inclination forwards. "Well!--you see--it was a party. I had invited some of my most distinguished friends--really, ma'am, FASHIONABLE friends, I may say, to dinner; and, ahem! you see--some little anxiety always attends such affairs--even--in the best regulated families!"
Here the speaker winked considerably at No. 4, and laughed very loudly himself at his own joke.
"Dear me, you must excuse me, ma'am," he proceeded. "So, you see, I felt a little fatigued by my morning's exertions, (to tell you the truth, there had been no end of bother about everything!) and I retired quietly up-stairs to take a short nap before the dressing- bell rang. But I had not been laid down quite half an hour, when there was a loud knock at the door. Really, ma'am, I felt quite alarmed, but was just able to ask, 'Who's there?' Before I had time to get an answer, however, the door was burst open by the housemaid.
Her face was absolute scarlet, and she sobbed out:-
"'Oh, ma'am, what shall we do?'
"'Good gracious, Hannah,' cried I, 'what can be the matter? Has the soot come down the chimney? Speak!'
"'It's nothing of that sort, ma'am,' answered Hannah, 'it's the cook!'
"'The cook!' I shouted. 'I wish you would not be so foolish, Hannah, but speak out at once. What about Cook?'
"'Please, m'm, the cook's lost!' says Hannah. 'We can't find her!'
"'Your wits are lost, Hannah, _I_ think,' cried I, and sent her to tidy the rooms while I slipt downstairs to look for the cook.
"Fancy a lost cook, ma'am! Was there ever such a ridiculous idea?
And on the day of a dinner-party too! Did you ever hear of such a trial to a lady's feelings before?"
"Never, I am sure," responded the lady opposite. "Did YOU, ma'am?"
turning to her neighbour.
But the other three ladies all shook their heads, bit their lips, and declared that they "Never had, they were sure!"
"I thought not!" ejaculated the narrator. "Well, ma'am, I went into the kitchens, the larder, the pantries, the cellars, and all sorts of places, and still no cook! Do you know, she really was nowhere!
Actually, ma'am, the cook was lost!"
Shouts of laughter burst forth here; but the lady (who was No. 5) put up his hand, and called out in his own natural tones:-
"Stop! I haven't got to the end yet!"
"Order!" proclaimed No. 4 immediately, in a very commanding voice, and thumping the table with the head of an old wooden doll to enforce obedience.
And then the sham lady proceeded in the same mincing voice as before:-
"Well!--dear me, I'm quite put out. But however, you see--what was to be done, that was the thing. It wanted only half an hour to dinner-time, and there was the meat roasting away by itself, and the potatoe-pan boiling over. You never heard such a fizzling as it made in your life--in short, everything was in a mess, and there was no cook.
"Well! I basted the meat for a few minutes, took the potatoe-pan off the fire, and then ran up-stairs to put on my bonnet. Thought I, the best thing I can do is to send somebody for the policeman, and let HIM find the cook. But while I was tying the strings of my bonnet, I fancied I heard a mysterious noise coming out of the bottom drawer of my wardrobe. Fancy that, ma'am, with my nerves in such a state from the cook being lost!"
No. 5 paused, and looked round for sympathy, which was most freely given by the other ladies, in the shape of sighs and exclamations.
"The drawer was a very deep drawer, ma'am, so I thought perhaps the cat had crept in," continued No. 5. "Well, I went to it to see, and there it was, partly open, with a cotton gown in it that didn't belong to me. Imagine my feelings at THAT, ma'am! So I pulled at the handles to get the drawer quite open, but it wouldn't come, it was as heavy as lead. It was really very alarming--one doesn't like such odd things happening--but at last I got it open, though I tumbled backwards as I did so; and what do you think, ma'am--ladies-- what DO you think was in it?"
"The cook!" shrieked No. 4, convulsed with laughter; and the whole party clapped their hands and roared applause.
"The cook, ma'am, actually the cook!" pursued No. 5, "one of the fattest, most POONCHY little women you ever saw. And what do you think was the history of it? I kept my up-stairs Pickwick in the corner of that bottom drawer. She had seen it there that very morning, when she was helping to dust the room, and took the opportunity of a spare half-hour to slip up and rest herself by reading it in the drawer. Unluckily, however, she had fallen asleep, and when I got the drawer out, there she lay, and I actually heard her snore. A shocking thing this education, ma'am, you see, and teaching people to read. All the cooks in the country are spoilt!"
Peals of laughter greeted this wonderfully witty concoction of No.
5's, and the lemon-coloured tea and biscuits were partaken of during the pause which followed.
Aunt Judy meanwhile, who had been quite unable to resist joining in the laugh herself, was seated on the floor, behind the open door of the wardrobe, thinking to herself of certain passages in Wordsworth's most beautiful ode, in which he has described the play of children,
"As if their whole vocation Were endless imitation."
Truly they had got hold here of strange
"Fragments from their dream of human life."
Where COULD the children have picked up the original of such absurd nonsense?
Aunt Judy had no time to make it out, for now the mincing voices began again, and she sat listening.
"Have YOU had no curious adventures with your maids, ma'am?" inquires No. 5 of No. 4.
No. 5 makes an attempt at a bewitching grin as he speaks, fanning himself with a fan which he has had in his hand all the time he was telling his story.