dinner-time, and still no hundreds of people. in the arrangements of the little household, miss pross took charge of the lower regions, and always acquitted herself marvellously. her dinners, of a very modest quality, were so well cooked and so well served, and so neat in their contrivances, half english and half french, that nothing could be better. miss pross's friendship being of the thoroughly practical kind, she had ravaged soho and the adjacent provinces, in search of impoverished french, who, tempted by shillings and half-crowns, would impart culinary mysteries to her. from these decayed sons and daughters of gaul, she had acquired such wonderful arts, that the woman and girl who formed the staff of domestics regarded her as quite a sorceress, or cinderella's godmother: who would send out for a fowl, a rabbit, a vegetable or two from the garden, and change them into anything she pleased.