Lady Lundie was far from liking her.

An unpleasant suspicion attached to the cook, which Sir Thomas had over-looked, but which persons less sensible of the immense importance of dining well could not fail to regard as a serious objection to her.

Medical men, consulted about her case discovered certain physiological anomalies in it which led them to suspect the woman of feigning dumbness, for some reason best known to herself.

She obstinately declined to learn the deaf and dumb alphabet--on the ground that dumbness was not associated with deafness in her case.

Stratagems were invented (seeing that she really did possess the use of her ears) to entrap her into also using her speech, and failed.