Elizabeth was proud of the home of which she was a part, but
her strength was limited since baby's coming, and after looking about her
critically decided that there would be no necessity for any more cleaning
than the regular weekly amount.

"We'll have to get the cleaning done on Wednesday instead of Friday, but I
think that will be all that will be needed. The carpets were put down
fresh the week before you came home, and I don't intend to take them up
again till spring."

"I think so," Mrs. Hunter agreed, "but You'll have to have the curtains in
the dining room washed, and the tidies and pillow-shams done up fresh."

"Now, mother!" Elizabeth exclaimed, "don't begin to lay out work I can't
get done. The tidies are not hard, and I could do the shams, but those
curtains are not to be thought of. I'd be so tired if I had to go to work
and wash all that, after the washing I put on the line to-day, that I just
wouldn't be able to get the dinner on the table Thursday. Talking about
the dinner, I think we'd better have two turkeys. I can roast two by
putting them in the one big pan."

Mrs. Hunter was willing that the younger woman should prove her talent as
a cook, but she planned to take some of the necessary things upon her own
shoulders, and to take her son into her schemes for brightening things up
a bit. Accordingly, the next morning she asked John to help her take the
curtains down.

Elizabeth had been so full of her own plans that she had forgotten to tell
John's mother that she intended to keep them secret till she had all her
preparations made. The next morning when she heard the thud of some one
stepping down from a chair, and her husband say: "There you are! How do
you happen to be taking the curtains down at this time of the week?" she
realized as she had never done before how much afraid of him she really
was, for her pulses bounded, and her ears boomed like cannon, long before
John had time to appear in the door to inquire who was coming, and why
they were to do so.

With a look very much like guilt, Elizabeth told over the names of her
proposed guests, but with Mrs. Hunter in the next room she could not tell
him why it meant so much to her to ask these people to dine with them.

The customary protest was offered without delay.

"I don't believe I'd do it, dear. Thanksgiving is a day for home folks,
not neighbours, and, besides, see all the work it will make."

"The work is just what we choose to make