She did not intend it at all , but there was a certain scornful ring in her voice . `` You must stay . I 've a fancy for company to tea . '' David sat down again . He looked so pleased that Josephine went down on her knees behind the stove , ostensibly to get a stick of firewood , but really to hide her smile . `` I suppose he 's tickled to death to think of getting a good square meal , after the starvation rations Zillah puts him on , '' she thought . But Josephine misjudged David just as much as he misjudged her . She had really asked him to stay to tea out of pity , but David thought it was because she was lonesome , and he hailed that as an encouraging sign . And he was not thinking about getting a good meal either , although his dinner had been such a one as only Zillah Hartley could get up . As he leaned back in his cushioned chair and watched Josephine bustling about the kitchen , he was glorying in the fact that he could spend another hour with her , and sit opposite to her at the table while she poured his tea for him and passed him the biscuits , just as if -- just as if -- Here Josephine looked straight at him with such intent and stern brown eyes that David felt she must have read his thoughts , and he colored guiltily . But Josephine did not even notice that he was blushing . She had only paused to wonder whether she would bring out cherry or strawberry preserve ; and , having decided on the cherry , took her piercing gaze from David without having seen him at all . But he allowed his thoughts no more vagaries . Josephine set the table with her mother 's wedding china . She used it because it was the anniversary of her mother 's wedding day , but David thought it was out of compliment to him . And , as he knew quite well that Josephine prized that china beyond all her other earthly possessions , he stroked his smooth-shaven , dimpled chin with the air of a man to whom is offered a very subtly sweet homage . Josephine whisked in and out of the pantry , and up and down cellar , and with every whisk a new dainty was added to the table . Josephine , as everybody in Meadowby admitted , was past mistress in the noble art of cookery . Once upon a time rash matrons and ambitious young wives had aspired to rival her , but they had long ago realised the vanity of such efforts and dropped comfortably back to second place . Josephine felt an artist 's pride in her table when she set the teapot on its stand and invited David to sit in .
There were pink slices of cold tongue , and crisp green pickles and spiced gooseberry , the recipe for which Josephine had invented herself , and which had taken first prize at the Provincial Exhibition for six successive years ; there was a lemon pie which was a symphony XXXXX gold and silver , biscuits as light and white as snow , and moist , plummy cubes of fruit cake .
As about at in of on that upon while with