"'Master James,' says I, 'I've done with nonsense now, I can't attend
to you. You must wait till the next cook comes.'

"But Master James came straight away to the scullery door, and says
he, 'Cook, I'm not coming to teaze. I've brought you a needle-book.
There, Cook! It's full of needles. I put them all in myself. Keep
it, please.'

"Dear, dear, I can't forget it yet," pursued Cook, "how Master James
stood on the little stone step of the scullery, with his arm
stretched out, and the needle-book that he'd bought for me in his
hand. I don't know how I thanked him, I'm sure; but I had to go back
to the sink and wash the dirt off my hands before I could touch the
pretty little thing, and then I told him I would keep it as long as
ever I lived.

"He laughed, and says he, 'Now shake hands, Cooky,' and so we shook
hands; and then off he ran, and I went back to my pans and fairly
cried.

"'Why, Cook,' says I to myself, 'that lad's got as good a heart as
your own, after all. And as to sense and behaviour, they haven't
been forced upon him yet, as they have upon you. Latin's Latin, and
conduct's conduct, and one doesn't teach the other; and it's too bad
to expect more of people than what they've had opportunity for.'

Well, dears, that was the rule I always went by, and I've been in
many situations since--with single ladies, and single gentlemen, and
large families, and all; and there was something to put up with in
all of them; and they always told me there was a good deal to put up