"Oh no, h'indeed, ma'am, it's a very fine day,--not bright, ma'am, but
very dry," was the answer.
Katy couldn't imagine what the maid meant, when she peeped between the
curtains and saw a thick dull mist lying over everything, and the
pavements opposite her window shining with wet. Afterwards, when she
understood better the peculiarities of the English climate, she too
learned to call days not absolutely rainy "fine," and to be grateful for
them; but on that first morning her sensations were of bewildered
surprise, almost vexation.
Mrs. Ashe and Amy were waiting in the coffee-room when she went in
search of them.
"What shall we have for breakfast," asked Mrs. Ashe,--"our first meal in
England? Katy, you order it."
"Let's have all the things we have read about in books and don't have at
home," said Katy, eagerly. But when she came to look over the bill of
fare there didn't seem to be many such things. Soles and muffins she
finally decided upon, and, as an after-thought, gooseberry jam.
"Muffins sound so very good in Dickens, you know," she explained to Mrs.
Ashe; "and I never saw a sole."
The soles when they came proved to be nice little pan-fish, not unlike
what in New England are called "scup." All the party took kindly to
them; but the muffins were a great disappointment, tough and tasteless,
with a flavor about them as of scorched flannel.
"How queer and disagreeable they are!" said Katy. "I feel as if I were
eating rounds cut from an old ironing-blanket and buttered! Dear me!
what did Dickens mean by making such a fuss about them, I wonder? And I
don't care for gooseberry jam, either; it isn't half as good as the jams
we have at home.
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