"My jam fortune," Grizzel answered. "Every year Mamma sends a case
of jam home to Grandmamma, and this year I am going to put in twelve
tins of my very own jam, and Grandmamma will sell it and put the
money in the bank for me. She promised she would if I was a good
girl, and I've been as good as it is possible for a human being to
be."

"But can _you_ make really-truly jam?" Mollie asked incredulously--
Grizzel looked so small and young to be a maker of real jam in
shoppy tins.

"Grizzel is a _beautiful_ cook," said Prudence, with an air of great
pride. "You wait till you taste her herring-shape, and her parsnip
sauce. Mamma says that cooks are born, not made, and that Grizzel is
born and I'm not made."

Mollie felt an immense respect for Grizzel. Cooking was not her own
strong point, as her Guide captain had informed her in plain
language more than once, and in any case food at home was too
precious for children to experiment with except under supervision--
there could be no playing about with fruit and sugar for instance.
She began to think that if there were some things she could teach
these forty-years-ago children, there were also some things she
could learn from them--a thought which would have given her mother
much pleasure could she have seen into her daughter's mind at that
moment.

"Hullo, girls!" said Hugh, coming out of the garden as they drew
near the cottage, "I've got an idea."