a good cook, and loved
cooking, what Francis returned to was not supper, but a very excellent
little dinner. And his wife had found time, as well, to dress herself
in the most fluffy and useless-looking of rosy summer frocks, with
white slippers. She looked more fragile and decorative and childish
than he had ever seen her, leaning across the little table talking
brightly to him about her adventures in the discovery of the things
that made up the meal.

An old quotation about "breaking a butterfly upon a wheel" came to him
as she chattered on, telling him delightedly how she had made up her
mind to surprise him with tomato bisque if it was her last act, and how
she had discovered a box that was labeled "condensed milk," and opened
it with infinite pains and a hatchet; and how after she had nearly
killed herself struggling with it, she had finally opened it, and found
that what it really contained was deviled ham in small, vivid tins; and
how she triumphed over Fate by using the ham with other things for
_hors d'oeuvres_; and how she finally found powdered milk in other
tins, and achieved her goal after all.

She was exactly as she would have been if all had gone well; and it is
not to be supposed that Francis could help feeling it. At first he was
quiet, almost gloomy; but presently, as she talked gaily on about all
the trifles she could think of--domestic trifles all of them, or things
to do with the cabin and its surroundings--he gave himself up to the
enjoyment of the hour. It was as if he said to himself, "I'll forget
for this little space of time that it isn't real." He looked
absorbedly into the little vivid face at the other side of the table,
and once, before he thought, put out his hand to take her hand where it
lay, little and slim and fragile-looking, on the table. He drew it
back quickly, but not before Marjorie had seen the instinctive motion.

She smiled at him brilliantly, and touched him lightly on the shoulder
as she passed.

"Come, help me, Francis," she said. "This is our house, you know, and
I mustn't do everything alone. And then I must hurry over to the other
cabin, and look over my new kingdom, and it would be a shame to do it
after your faithful slaves had gone to bed. They would have to get up
and dress and stand at attention, wouldn't they, when they heard your
august footstep?"

She laughed openly at him as she went into the kitchen, and he followed
her and helped her clear awa