would say, counting on her fingers, "roast beef--leg of mutton--boiled
chicken. Debby, you might roast the chickens. Dear!--I wish somebody
would invent a new animal! Where all the things to eat are gone to, I
can't imagine!"

Then Katy would send for every recipe-book in the house, and pore over
them by the hour, till her appetite was as completely gone as if she had
swallowed twenty dinners. Poor Debby learned to dread these books. She
would stand by the door with her pleasant red face drawn up into a
pucker, while Katy read aloud some impossible-sounding rule.

"This looks as if it were delicious, Debby, I wish you'd try it: Take a
gallon of oysters, a pint of beef stock, sixteen soda crackers, the
juice of two lemons, four cloves, a glass of white wine, a sprig of
marjoram, a sprig of thyme, a sprig of bay, a sliced shalott--"

"Please, Miss Katy, what's them?"

"Oh, don't you know, Debby? It must be something quite common, for it's
in almost all the recipes."

"No, Miss Katy, I never heard tell of it before. Miss Carr never gave me
no shell-outs at all at all!"

"Dear me, how provoking!" Katy would cry, flapping over the leaves of
her book; "then we must try something else."

Poor Debby! If she hadn't loved Katy so dearly, I think her patience
must have given way. But she bore her trials meekly, except for an
occasional grumble when alone with Bridget. Dr. Carr had to eat a great