emed to have divined her thoughts, for his smile,
upon receiving her halting thanks, had not been without a touch of
malicious amusement.

On the other hand, all her little efforts to beautify the little house
and make it more livable met with his enthusiastic approval and support.
He was as delighted as a child with everything she did, and often, when
baffled for the moment by some lack of material for carrying out some
proposed scheme, he came to the rescue with an ingenious suggestion
which solved the vexed problem at once.

And so, gradually, to the no small wonder of her neighbor, Mrs. Sharp,
the shack began to take on an air of homely brightness and comfort which
that lady's more pretentious place lacked, even after a residence of
thirteen years.

Curtains tied back with gay ribands, taken from an old hat and
refurbished, appeared at the windows; the old tin syrup cans, pasted
over with dark green paper, were made to disgorge their mouldy stores
and transform themselves into flower-pots holding scarlet geraniums;
even the disreputable, rakish old rocking chair assumed a belated air of
youth and respectability, wearing as it did a cushion of discreetly
patterned chintz; and the packing-box table hid its deficiencies under a
simple cloth. All these magic transformations Nora had achieved with
various odds and ends which she found in her trunk.

Not to be outdone, Frank had contributed a well-made shelf to hold
Nora's precious books and a sort of cupboard for her sewing basket and,
for the crowning touch, had with much labor contrived some rough chairs
to take the place of the packing-box affairs of unpleasant memory.

As has been said, Mrs. Sharp came, saw and wondered; but she had her own
theory, all the same, which she confided to her husband.

All these little but significant changes, the result of their
co-operative effort, had not been the work of days, but of weeks. By the
time they had all been accomplished, the winter was practically over and
spring was at hand. Looking back on it, it seemed impossibly short,
although there had been times, in spite of her manifold occupations,
when it had seemed to Nora that it was longer than any winter she had
ever known. She looked forward to the coming spring with both pleasure
and dread.

Through many a dark winter day she had pictured to herself how beautiful
the prairie must be, clad in all the verdant livery of the most
wonderful of the seasons. And yet it wo