Faith had
kept her secret well, going to and fro to the cottage, busy and happy
as any other robin in spring-time preparing her nest.

The nest was all finished now, and Faith stood one afternoon in her
kitchen door, taking a critical and comprehensive view of the whole,
then turning with great satisfaction to survey the kitchen. It was a
mite of a room, but Faith was very proud of it; this was to be her
workshop; here cooking was to be carried on as a fine art. No
ruthless Biddy should soil the purity of her new pine table, or tread
out the gray matting of the floor. She took a last peep into the
china closet, looked lovingly at a row of tin dishes new and
shining, bestowed admiring glances at the gasoline stove, the
presiding genius of the whole, then she opened the outside door into
an old-fashioned garden, filled with lilacs and roses, and pinks and
southernwood, and all spicy plants and fragrant herbs. She sat down
to rest a few minutes, she had accomplished such wonders to-day.
Daisy had been left for the day in the care of a kind old lady, and
Faith, hiring a woman to help her a few hours, had been hard at work.
There was a stone jar filled with golden brown loaves of delicious
bread, another jar with cake light as down, a tempting bit of roast
lamb sat in the refrigerator; all was in readiness for tomorrow, when
the grand secret would be revealed. Faith felt so happy and
satisfied; she had tried and proved the stove, it was all that it was
represented to be; there was assuredly nothing, now, in the way of a
home together in the country.

"Will you not come home early, and let us take a little trip on the
street car out into the country?" Faith asked her husband next
morning.

"Yes, indeed!" he answered, sighing. "I must make the most of my
family now; only three days more left, I believe."

The unsuspecting man little though that all his worldly possessions
were not long after on the way to Maplewood, and that his wife waited
impatiently to take him there too.

"Now you are out on my invitation, you and baby," Faith said, as they
alighted from the car at Maplewood. "You are to ask no questions, but
do as you are told."

She led the way up the pleasant street, her husband following in
silent wonder as she passed up the walk, turned the key of the
cottage door, invited him to come in and be seated, while she passed
on into the next room. A few moments, and then the door swung open,
revealing that cool da