cold fat and sundry legs of fowls that were
not picked clean. Serious cooks occasionally
wear their mistresses' black silk stockings to
go to chapel in; my aunt had a serious cook
who drank; and there is a legend in our
family of a peculiarly evangelical cook who
could not keep her hands off other people's
pomatum. But little Zita was sincerely,
unfeignedly, cheerfully, devotedly pious. She
did not neglect her duties to pray: she rose
up early in the morning before the cock crew,
while her masters were sunk in drunken
sleep, and prayed for herself and for them,
then went to her daily labour with vigorous
heart of grace. There are some of us who
pray, as grudgingly performing a certain
duty, and doing it, but no more—some of us
as an example (and what an example!) to
others some through mere habit (and those
are in a bad case) some (who shall gainsay
it?) in hypocrisy; but do we not all, Scribes
and Pharisees, Publicans and Sinners, number
among our friends, among those we know,
some few good really pious souls who strike us
with a sort; of awe and reverent respect;
who do their good deeds before we rise, or
after we retire to rest; creep into heaven the
back way, but are not the less received there
with trumpets and crowns of glory?

Such was little Saint Zita. She was, I
have said, truly pious. In an age when there
was as yet but one Ritual, before dissent and
drums ecclesiastic existed, Zita thought it her
bounden duty to abide by and keep all the
fasts and festivals of the church as ordained
by the bishops, priests, and deacons. For she
was not book-learned, this poor little cook-
maid, and had but these three watchwords
for a rule of conduct—Faith, Duty, and
Obedience.

It is in the legend that she would decoy
the little white-haired, blue-eyed children of
the barbarian soldiers into her kitchen, and
there, while giving them sweetmeats and
other goodies, teach them to lisp little Latin
prayers, and tell over the rosary, and kiss
the crucifix appended to it. And she would
have assuredly have fallen under the grave
displeasure of the heaven-born SIR, ROBERT
W. GARDEN, and have been specially pointed
at in his proposed Act of Parliament for
making almsgiving penal, since she bestowed
the major part of her wages in gifts to
beggars, unmindful whether they were Christian
or pagan; and, for a certainty, the strong-
minded would have sneered at her, and the
wearers of phylacteries would have frowned
on her, for she thought it a grave sin to
disobey the edict of the church that forbade the
eating of flesh on Friday and other appointed
fasts. Pompouius Cotta, it must be
acknowledged, was troubled with no such
scruples. He would have rated his cook
soundly, and perchance scourged her, if she
had served him up meagre fare on the sixth
day of the week; yet I find it in the legend
that little Zita was enabled by her own skill,
and, doubtless, by celestial assistance, to
perpetrate a pious fraud upon this epicurean
Roman. The Fridays' dinners were as rich
and succulent, and called forth as loud
encomia as those of the other days, yet not one
scrap of meat, one drop of carnal gravy, did
Zita employ in the concoction thereof. Fish,
and eggs, and divers mushrooms, truffles and
ketchups, became, in the hands of the saintly
cook, susceptible of giving the most meaty
flavours. 'Tis said that Zita invented burnt
onions—those grand culinary deceptions!
And though they were in reality making
meagre, as good Christians should do,
Pomponius and his boon companions thought
they were feasting upon venison and poultry
and choice roasts. This is one of the secrets
that died with Saint Zita. I never tasted
sorrel soup that had even the suspicion of a
flavour of meat about it; and though I have
heard much of the rice fritters and savoury
soups of the Lancashire vegetarians, I doubt
much of their ability to conceal the taste
of the domestic cabbage and the homely
onion.

Now it fell out in the year of redemption—
I have not the slightest idea—that P.
Maremnius Citronius Ostendius, a great
gastronome and connoisseur in oysters, came
from Asia to visit his kinsman Pomponius.
There was some talk of his marrying the
beautiful Flavia Pomponilia, the eldest
daughter of the Pomponian house (she was
as jealous of Zita as Fleur de Lys was of
Esmeralda, and would have thrust golden
pins into her, a-la-mode Romaine, but for
fear of her father); but at all events Ostendius
was come down from Asia to Genoa, and
there was to be a great feast in honour of
his arrival. Ostendius had an aldermanic
abdomen under his toga, had a voice that
reminded you of fruity port, bees-wings in his
eyes, a face very like collared brawn, and wore
a wig. Those adjuncts to beauty were worn,
ladies and gentlemen, fifteen hundred years ago.
Ay! look in at the Egyptian Room of the
British Museum, London, and you shall find
wigs older than that. He had come from Asia,
where he was reported to have partaken of
strange dishes–birds of paradise, gryphons,
phoenixes, serpents, elephants—what do I
know but he despised not the Persicos
apparatus, and was not a man to be trifled
with in his victuals! Pomponius Cotta called
his cook into his sanctum, and gave her
instructions as to the banquet, significantly
telling her what she might expect if she failed
in satisfying him and his gastronomical
guests. Poor Zita felt a cold shudder as she
listened to the threats which, in lazy Latin,
her noble master lavished upon her. But she
determined, less through fear of punishment
than a sincere desire of doing her duty, to
exert herself to the very utmost in the
preparation of the feast. Perhaps there may
have been a little spice of vanity in this
determination; perhaps she was actuated by a