maid does the whole
thing capitally. But let me give you a test. Think of the very best
housekeeper you ever met. Would you like to have her here instead of me?
You may be quite candid."

Riatt stopped and considered an instant with his head on one side. "She'd
make me awfully comfortable," he said.

Miss Fenimer nodded, as much as to say: yes, but even so--

"No," he said at length, as if the decision had been close. "No, after
all I would rather do the work and have you. But it isn't because you are
a poor housekeeper that I prefer you. It's because--"

Compliments upon her, charms were platitudes to Christine, and she cut
him short. "Yes, it is. It's because I'm so detached, and don't
interfere, and let you do things your own way, and think you so wonderful
to be able to do them at all. Now if I knew how to do them, too, I should
be criticizing and suggesting all the time, and you'd have no peace. You
like me for _being a poor housekeeper_."

He smiled. "On that ground I ought to like you very much then," he
answered.

"Perhaps you do," she said cheerfully. "Anyhow I'm sure you like me
better than that other girl you were thinking of--that good housekeeper.
Who is she?"

"I like her quite a lot."

"I see--you think she'd make a good wife."

"I think she'd make a good wife to any man who was fortunate enough--"

"Oh, what a dreadful way to talk of the poor girl!"

"On the contrary, I admire her extremely."

"I believe you are engaged to her."

"Not as much as you are to Hickson."

Christine laughed. "From the way you describe her," she said, "I believe
she'd make a perfect wife for Ned."

"Oh, she's much too good for him."

"Thank you. You seem to think I'll do nicely for him."

"Ah, but she's much better than you are."

"And yet you said you'd rather have me here than her."

He smiled. "I think," he said, and Christine rather waited for his
next words, "I think I shall go down and see if I can't get the
furnace going."

Nevertheless, she said to herself when he was gone, "I should not feel at
all easy about him, if I were the other girl."

She knew there was no prospect of their being rescued that night. When
the sleigh arrived at the Usshers', if it ever did arrive, its empty
shattered condition would suggest an accident. The Usshers were at that
moment probably searching for them in ditches, and hedges. The marks of
the sleigh would be quickly obliterated by the storm. No, she thought
c