That afternoon the good La Fleur came to Cobhurst, her soul enlivened by
the determination to show what admirable meals could be prepared from the
most simple materials, and with the prospect of spending a fortnight with
Mrs. Drane and Cicely, and with that noble gentleman, the master of the
estate, and to pass these weeks in the country. She was a great lover of
things rural: she liked to see, pecking and scratching, the fowls with
which she prepared such dainty dishes. In her earlier days, the sight of
an old hen wandering near a bed of celery, with a bed of beets in the
middle distance, had suggested the salad for which she afterwards became
somewhat famous.
She knew a great deal about garden vegetables, and had been heard to
remark that brains were as necessary in the culling of fruits and roots
and leaves and stems as for their culinary transformation into
attractions for the connoisseur's palate. She was glad, too, to have the
opportunity of an occasional chat with that intelligent negro Mike, and
so far as she could judge, there were no objections to the presence of
Miriam in the house.
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