for some time, hazy sensations began to steal over one or two minds,
that this WAS somehow really a cook, it was all in the natural course
of things, and nobody resisted the feeling.

Aunt Judy's altered voice, and odd, assumed manner, contributed, no
doubt, a good deal to the impression.

"Dear, dear! what pretty little darlings you all are!" she began,
looking at them one after another. "As sweet as sugar-plums, when
you have your own way, and are pleased. Eh, dears? But you don't
think you can take old Cooky in, do you? No, no, I know what ladies
and gentlemen, and ladies' and gentlemen's YOUNG ladies and YOUNG
gentlemen are, pretty well, dears, I can tell you! Don't I know all
about the shiny hair and smiling faces of the little pets in the
parlour, and how they leave parlour-manners behind them sometimes,
when they run to the kitchen to Cook, and order her here and there,
and want half-a-dozen things at once, and must and will have what
they want, and are for popping their fingers into every pie!

"Well, well," she proceeded, "the parlour's the parlour, and the
kitchen's the kitchen, and I'm only a cook. But then I conduct
myself AS Cook, even when I'm in the scullery, and I only wish
ladies, and ladies' YOUNG ladies too, would conduct themselves as
ladies, even when they come into the kitchen; that's what I call
being honourable and upright. Well, dears, I'll tell you how I came
to know all about it. You see, I lived once in a family where there
were no less than eight of those precious little pets, and a precious
time I had of it with them. But, to be sure, now it's past and gone-
-I can make plenty of excuses for them, poor things! They were so
coaxed and flattered, and made so much of, what could be expected