They came just as regularly as usual to church, and we all lived happily ever after.
I feel that my chapter should end here; but any record of my New Zealand servants would be incomplete without mention of my "bearded cook." Every body thinks, when I say this, that I am going to tell them about a man, but it is nothing of the sort.

Isabella Lyon, in spite of her pronounced beard, was a very fine woman; exceedingly good-humoured looking and fresh-coloured, with most amiable prepossessing manners.

She had not long arrived, and had been at once snapped up for an hotel, but she applied for my place, saying she wished for quiet and a country life.
Could any thing be more propitious?
I thought, like Lois, that my luck, so long in turning, was improving, and that at last I was to have a cook who knew her business.

And so she did, thoroughly and delightfully.

For one brief fortnight we lived on dainties.