Polly a New-Fashioned Girl by L.T. Meade — Read

There is no saying how Polly's week of housekeeping might have ended, nor how substantial her castle in the air might have grown, had not a catastrophe occurred to her of a double and complex nature.

The first day during which Polly and Maggie, between them, catered for and cooked the family meals, produced a plain diet in the shape of cold bacon for breakfast, and a dinner of potatoes, minus "point. " But on the Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday of that week Maggie quite redeemed her character of being a Flooder, and worked under Polly with such goodwill that, as she herself expressed it, her small brains began to grow. Fortunately, Mrs. Ricketts, Maggie's mother, was not obliged to meet her rent every day of the week, therefore no more of Polly's four pounds went in that direction. And Polly read Mrs. Beaton's Cookery-book with such assiduity, and Maggie carried out her directions with such implicit zeal and good faith, that really most remarkable meals began to grace the Doctor's board. Pastry in every imaginable form and guise, cakes of all descriptions; vegetables, so cooked and so flavored, that their original taste was completely obliterated; meats cooked in German, Italian, and American styles; all these things, and many more, graced the board and speedily vanished. The children became decidedly excited about the meals, and Polly was cheered and regarded as a sort of queen. The Doctor sighed, however, and counted the days when Nell and Mrs. Power should once more peacefully reign in Polly's stead. Nurse asked severely to have all the nursery medicine bottles replenished. Firefly looked decidedly pasty, and, after one of Polly's richest plum-cakes, with three tiers of different colored icings, Bunny was heard crying the greater part of one night. Still the little cook and housekeeper bravely pursued her career of glory, and all might have gone well, and Polly might have worn a chastened halo of well-earned success round her brow for the remainder of her natural life, but for the catastrophe of which I am about to speak.