He was sitting on one of the stools, pipe in mouth, reading a newspaper he had already read in the train.

"Well, what do you think of the shack?"

"I don't know."

"I built it with my own hands. Every one of them logs was a tree I cut down myself. You wait till morning and I'll show you how they're joined together, at the corners. There's some neat work there, my girl, I guess."

"Yes? Oh, I was forgetting; here's the kettle." She brought it over to him from the shelf. He filled the kettle carefully from the pail while she stood and watched him. She took it from his hand and set it on the stove to boil.

"You'll find some tea in one of them cans on the shelf; leastways, there was some there when I come away. I reckon you're hungry."

"I don't think I am, very. I ate a very good supper on the train, you know."

"I'm glad you call that a good supper. I guess I could wrap up the amount you ate in a postage stamp."

"Well," she said with a smile, "you may be glad to learn that I haven't a very large appetite."

"I have, then. Where's the loaf we got in Winnipeg this afternoon?"

"I'll get it."

"And the butter. You'll bake to-morrow, I reckon."

"You're a brave man—unless you've forgotten my first attempt at Eddie's," she said with a laugh as she took the loaf and butter from the bag.

For some reason her mood had completely changed. All her confidence in being perfectly able to take care of herself had returned. She had been frightened, badly frightened a moment ago at nothing. Nerves, nothing more. Nerves were queer things. It was because she hadn't slept last night. She was such a good sleeper naturally that a wakeful night affected her more than it did most people. The cool night air had completely restored her.

She hunted about until she found a knife, and with the loaf in one hand and the knife poised in the air asked:

"Shall I cut you some?"

"Yep."

"Please."

"Please what?"

"Yep, please," she said with a gay smile.

"Oh!" he growled.

Still smiling, she cut several slices of bread and buttered them. Going to the shelf, she found the teapot and shook some tea into it from one of the cans, measuring it carefully with her eye. His momentary ill humor, caused by her correcting him, vanished as he watched her.

"I guess it's about time you took your hat and coat off," he said with a chuckle.

As a matter of fact, she was not conscious that they were still on. Without a word, she took them off and, having given her coat a little shake and a pat, looked about her for a place to put them. She ended finally by putting them both on the kitchen chair.

"You ain't terribly talkative for a woman, are you, my girl?"

"I haven't anything to say for the moment," said Nora.

"Well, I guess it's better to have a wife as talks too little than a wife as talks too much."

"I suppose absolute perfection is rare—in women, poor wretches," she said in the old ironic tone she had always used toward him while he was her brother's hired man.

"What's that?" he said sharply.

"I was only amusing myself with a reflection."

He checked an angry retort, and striding over to a nail in the wall, took off his coat and hung it up. Somehow, he looked larger than ever in his gray sweater. A sense of comfort and unaccustomed well-being restored him to good humor. Throwing himself into the rocker, he stretched out his long legs luxuriantly.

"I guess there's no place like home. You get a bit fed up with hiring out. Ed was O. K., I reckon, but it ain't like being your own boss."

"I should think it wouldn't be," said Nora quietly.

"Where does that door go?" she asked presently.

"That? Oh, into the bedroom. Like to have a look?"

"No."

"No what?" he said quickly.

Nora turned from the shelf where she had been contriving a place to put the things they had brought from the town, and looked at him inquiringly. His face was grave, but a twinkle in his eye betrayed him. She blushed charmingly to the roots of her hair, but her laugh was perfectly frank and good-humored. "I beg your pardon. I was so occupied with arranging my pantry that I forgot my manners. No, thank you."

"One can't be too careful about these important things," he said with rather heavy humor. "When I built this shack," he went on proudly—but the pride was the pride of possession, not of achievement—"I fixed it up so as it would do when I got married. Sid Sharp asked me what in hell I wanted to divide it up in half for, but I guess women like little luxuries like that."

"Like what?"

"Like having a room to sleep in and a room to live in."

"Here's the bread and butter," said Nora abruptly. "Will you have some syrup?"

"S-u-r-e." He got up out of the rocking chair and pulling one of the stools up to the table, sat down.

"The water ought to be boiling by now; what about milk?"

"That's one of the things you'll have to learn to do without till I can afford to buy a cow."

"I can't drink tea without milk."

"You try. Say, can you milk a cow?"

"I? No."

"Then it's just as well I ain't got one."

Nora laughed. "You are a philosopher."

Having filled the teapot with boiling water and set it on the table, she returned to the shelf and began moving the things about in search of something.

"What you looking for?"

"Is there a candle? I'll just get one or two things out of my box and bring in here."

"Ain't you going to sit down and have a cup of tea?"

"I don't want any, thanks."

"Sit down, my girl."

"Why?"

"Because I tell you to." The command was smilingly given.

"I don't think you'd better tell me to do things." Nora could smile, too.

"Then I ask you. You ain't going to refuse the first favor I've asked you?"

"Certainly not," she said in her most charming manner. Pulling another of the stools up to the table, she sat facing him.

"There."

"Now, pour out my tea for me, will you? I tell you," he said, watching her slim hands moving among the tea things, "it's rum seeing my wife sitting down at my table and pouring out tea for me."

"Is it pleasant?"

"Sure. Now have some tea yourself, my girl. You'll soon get used to drinking it without milk. And I guess you'll be able to get some to-morrow from Mrs. Sharp."

Nora noticed that he did not taste his tea until she had poured herself a cup.

"Just take a bit of the bread and butter."

He passed her the plate and she, still smiling brightly, broke off a small half of one of the slices.

"I had a sort of feeling I wanted you and me to have the first meal together in your new home," he said gently.

Then, with a sudden change of manner, he laughed aloud.

"We ain't lost much time, I guess. Why, it's only yesterday you told me not to call you Nora. You did flare out at me!"

"That was very silly of me, but I was in a temper."

"And now we're man and wife."

"Yes: married in haste with a vengeance."

"Ain't you a bit scared?"

"I? What of? You?"

Her voice was steady, but the hands in her lap were clenched.

"With Ed miles away, t'other side of Winnipeg, he might just as well be in the old country for all the good he can be to you. You might naturally be a bit scared to find yourself alone with a man you don't know."

"I'm not the nervous sort."

"Good for you!"

"You did give me a fright, though," said Nora, with a laugh, "when I asked you if you'd take me. I suppose it was only about fifteen seconds before you answered, but it seemed like ten minutes. I thought you were going to refuse. How Gertie would have gloated!"

"I was thinking."

"I see. Counting up my good points and balancing them against my bad ones."

"N-o-o-o: I was thinking you wouldn't have asked me like that if you hadn't of despised me."

Nora caught her breath sharply, but her manner lost none of its lightness.

"I don't know what made you think that."

"Well, I don't know how you could have put it more plainly that my name was mud."

"Why didn't you refuse, then?"

"I guess I'm not the nervous sort, either," he remarked dryly over his teacup.

"And," Nora reminded him, "women are scarce in Manitoba."

"I've always fancied an English woman," he went on, ignoring her little thrust. "They make the best wives going when they've been licked into shape."

Nora showed her amusement frankly.

"Are you purposing to attempt that operation on me?"

"Well, you're clever. I guess a hint or two is about all you'll want."

"You embarrass me when you pay me compliments."

"I'll take you round and show you the land to-morrow," he said, tilting back on his stool, to the imminent peril of his equilibrium. "I ain't done all the clearing yet, so there'll be plenty of work for the winter. I want to have a hundred acres to sow next year. And then, if I get a good crop, I've a mind to take another quarter. You can't make it pay really without you've got half a section. And it's a tough proposition when you ain't got capital."

"I had no idea I was marrying a millionaire."

"Never you mind, my girl, you shan't live in a shack long, I promise you. It's the greatest country in the world. We only want three good crops and you shall have a brick house same as you lived in back home."

"I wonder what they're doing in England now."

"Well, I guess they're asleep."

"When I think of England I always think of it at tea time," began Nora, and then stopped short.

A wave of regret caught her throat. In spite of herself, the tears filled her eyes. She looked miserably at the cheap, ugly tea things on the makeshift table before her. Her husband watched her gravely. Presently she went on, more to herself than to him:

"Miss Wickham had a beautiful old silver teapot, a George Second. She was awfully proud of it. And she was proud of her tea-set; it was old Worcester. And she wouldn't let anyone wash the tea things but——" Again, her voice failed her. "And two or three times a week an old Indian judge came in to tea. And he used to talk to me about the East, the wonderful, beautiful East. He made me long to see it all—I who had never been anywhere. I've always loved history and books of travel more than anything else. There are a lot of them there in my box—that's what makes it so heavy—all about the beautiful places I was going to see later on with the money Miss Wickham promised me——" her glance took in the mean little room in all its unrelieved ugliness. "Oh, why did you make me think of it all?"

She bowed her head on the table for a moment. Taylor laid his hand gently on her arm.

"The past is dead and gone, my girl. We've got the future; it's ours."

She gently disengaged herself from his detaining hand and went over to the little window, looking out with eyes that saw other pictures than the window had to show.

"One never knows when one's well off, does one? It's madness to think of what's gone forever."

For several minutes there was silence, during which Nora recovered her self-control. Having wiped away her tears, she turned hack to him, smiling bravely. "I beg your pardon. You'll think me more foolish than I really am. I'm not the crying sort, I assure you. But I don't know, it all——"

"That's all right, I know you're not," he said roughly. "I wish we'd got a good drop of liquor here," he went on with the evident intention of changing the current of her thoughts, "so as we could drink one another's health. But as we ain't, you'd better give me a kiss instead."

"I'm not at all fond of kissing," said Nora coolly.

Frank grinned at her, his pipe stuck between his white teeth.

"It ain't, generally speaking, an acquired taste. I guess you must be peculiar."

"It looks like it," she said lightly.

"Come, my girl," he said, getting slowly up from his stool, "you didn't even kiss me after we was married."

"Isn't a hint enough for you?"—her tone was perfectly friendly. "Why do you insist on my saying everything in so many words? Why make me dot my i's and cross my t's, so to speak?"

"It seems to me it wants a few words to make it plain when a woman refuses to give her husband a kiss."

"Do sit down, there's a good fellow, and I'll tell you one or two things."

"That's terribly kind of you," he said, sinking into the rocker. "Have you any choice of seats?"

"Not now, since you've taken the only one that's tolerably comfortable. I think there's nothing to choose between the others."

"Nothing, I should say."

"I think we'd better fix things up before we go any further," she said, resuming her stool.

"Sure."

"You gave me to understand very plainly that you wanted a wife in order to get a general servant without having to pay her wages. Wages are high, here in Canada."

"That was the way you put it."

"Batching isn't very comfortable, you'll confess that?"

"I'll confess that, all right."

"You wanted someone to cook and bake for you, wash, sweep and mend. I offered to come and do all that for you. It never entered my head for an instant that there was any possibility of your expecting anything else of me."

"Then you're a damned fool, my girl."

He was perfectly good-natured. She would have preferred him to be a little angry. She would know how to cope with that, she thought. But she flared up a little herself.

"D'you mind not saying things like that to me?"

His smile widened. "I guess I'll have to say a good many things like that—or worse—before we've done."

"I asked you to marry me only because I couldn't stay in the shack otherwise."

"You asked me to marry you because you was in the hell of a temper," he retorted. "You were mad clean through. You wanted to get away from Ed's farm right then and there and you didn't care what you did so long as you quit. But you was darned sorry for what you'd done by the time you'd got your trunk packed."

"I don't know that you have any reason for thinking that," she said stiffly.

"I've got sense. Besides, when you opened the door when I went up and knocked, you was as white as a sheet. You'd have given anything you had to say you'd changed your mind, but your damned pride wouldn't let you."

"I wouldn't have stayed longer in that house for anything in the world," said Nora with passion.

"There you are; that's just what I have been telling you," he said, nodding his head. "And this morning, when I came for you at the Y. W. C. A., you wanted bad to say you wouldn't marry me. When you shook hands with me your hand was like ice. You tried to speak the words, but they wouldn't come."

"After all, one isn't married every day of one's life, is one? I admit I was nervous for the moment."

"If I hadn't shown you the license and the ring, I guess you wouldn't have done it. You hadn't the nerve to back out of it then."

"I hadn't slept a wink all night. I kept on turning it over in my mind. I was frightened at what I'd done. I didn't know a soul in Winnipeg. I hadn't anywhere to go. I had four dollars in my pocket. I had to go on with it."

"Well, you took pretty good stock of me in the train on the way here, I guess," he laughed, pacing up and down the room.

"What makes you think so?" asked Nora, who had recovered her coolness.

"Well, I felt you was looking at me a good deal while I was asleep," he jeered. "It wasn't hard to see that you was turning me over in your mind. What conclusion did you come to?"

Nora evaded the question for the moment.

"You see, I lived all these years with an old lady. I know very little about men."

"I guessed that."

"I came to the conclusion that you were a decent fellow and I thought you would be kind to me."

"Bouquets are just flying round! Have you got anything more to say to me?" he asked, seating himself once more in his chair.

"No, I think not."

"Then just get me my tobacco pouch, will you? I guess you'll find it in the pocket of my coat."

With narrowed eyes, he watched her first hesitate, and then bring it to him.

"Here you are." Her tone was crisp.

"I thought you was going to tell me I could darned well get it myself," he laughed.

"I don't very much like to be ordered about," she said smoothly; "I didn't realize it was one of your bad habits."

"You never paid much attention to me or my habits till to-day, I reckon."

"I was always polite to you."

"Oh, very! But I was the hired man, and you'd never let me forget it. You thought yourself a darned sight better than me, because you could play the piano and speak French. But we ain't got a piano and there ain't anyone as speaks French nearer than Winnipeg."

"I don't just see what you're driving at."

"Parlor tricks ain't much good on the prairie. They're like dollar bills up in Hudson Bay country. Tobacco's the only thing you can trade with an Esquimaux. You can't cook very well, you don't know how to milk a cow; why, you can't even harness a horse."

"Are you regretting your bargain already?"

"No," he said, going over to the shelf in search of the matches, "I guess I can teach you. But if I was you"—he paused, the lighted match in his fingers, to look at her—"I wouldn't put on any airs. We'll get on O. K., I guess, when we've shaken down."

"You'll find I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself," she said with emphasis, speaking each word slowly. She returned his steady gaze and felt a thrill of victory when he looked away.

"When two people live in a shack," he went on as if she had not spoken, "there's got to be a deal of give and take on both sides. As long as you do what I tell you you'll be all right."

A sort of an angry smile crossed Nora's face.

"It's unfortunate that when anyone tells me to do a thing, I have an irresistible desire not to do it."

"I guess I tumbled to that. You must get over it."

"You've spoken to me once or twice in a way I don't like. I think we shall get on better if you ask me to do things."

"Don't forget that I can make you do them," he said brutally.

"How?" Really, he was amusing!

"Well, I'm stronger than you are."

"A man can hardly use force in his dealings with a woman," she reminded him.

"O-o-o-oh?"

"You seem surprised."

"What's going to prevent him?"

"Don't be so silly," she retorted as she turned to look once more out of the window. But her hands were clammy and, somehow, even though her back was turned toward him, she knew that he was smiling.