living cook had been induced to remain partly by threats and partly by
promises of increased pay; the threats consisting largely of expressions
of determination to leave her in England, thousands of miles from her home
in Massachusetts, deserted and forlorn, the poor woman being
insufficiently provided with funds to get back to America, and holding in
her veins a strain of Celtic blood quite large enough to make the idea of
remaining an outcast in England absolutely intolerable to her. At the end
of seven days Terwilliger was seemingly as far from the solution of his
problem as ever, and at the grand fete given by himself and wife on the
afternoon of the seventh day of his trial, to the Earl of Mugley, the one
in whom Ariadne was interested, he seemed almost rude to his guests, which
the latter overlooked, taking it for the American way of entertaining. It
is very hard for a shoemaker to entertain earls, dukes, and the plainest
kind of every-day lords under ordinary circumstances; but when, in
addition to the duties of host, the maker of soles has to think out a
recipe for the making of an aristocrat out of a deceased plebe, a polite
drawing-room manner is hardly to be expected. Mr. Terwilliger's manner
remained of the kind to be expected under the circumstances, neither
better nor worse, until the flunky at the door announced, in stentorian
tones, "The Hearl of Mugley."

The "Hearl" of Mugley seemed to be the open sesame to the door betwixt
Terwilliger and success. Simultaneously with the entrance of the earl
the solution of his problem flashed across the mind of the master of
Bangletop, and his affronting demeanor, his preoccupation and all
disappeared in an instant. Indeed, so elegantly enthusiastic was his
reception of the earl that Lady Maud Sniffles, on the other side of the
room, whispered in the ear of the Hon. Miss Pottleton that Mugley's
creditors were in luck; to which the Hon. Miss Pottleton, whose smiles
upon the nobleman had been returned unopened, curved her upper lip