When the Marchesa had opened four more letters, one from Lady
Considine, one from Mrs. Sinclair, one from Miss Macdonnell, and
one from Mrs. Wilding, and found that all these ladies were obliged
to postpone their dinners on account of the misdeeds of their
cooks, she felt that the laws of average were all adrift. Surely
the three remaining letters must contain news of a character to
counterbalance what had already been revealed, but the event showed
that, on this particular morning, Fortune was in a mood to strike
hard. Colonel Trestrail, who gave in his chambers carefully devised
banquets, compounded by a Bengali who was undoubtedly something of
a genius, wrote to say that this personage had left at a day's
notice, in order to embrace Christianity and marry a lady's-maid
who had just come into a legacy of a thousand pounds under the will
of her late mistress. Another correspondent, Mrs. Gradinger, wrote
that her German cook had announced that the dignity of womanhood
was, in her opinion, slighted by the obligation to prepare food for
others in exchange for mere pecuniary compensation. Only on
condition of the grant of perfect social equality would she consent
to stay, and Mrs. Gradinger, though she held advanced opinions, was
hardly advanced far enough to accept this suggestion. Last of all,
Mr. Sebastian van der Roet was desolate to announce that his cook,
a Japanese, whose dishes were, in his employer's estimation,
absolute inspirations, had decamped and taken with him everything
of value he could lay hold of; and more than desolate, that he was
forced to postpone the pleasure of welcoming the Marchesa di
Sant' Andrea at his table.

When she had finished reading this last note, the Marchesa gathered
the whole mass of her morning's correspondence together, and
uttering a few Italian words which need not be translated, rolled