er lips; and she let
Jim see there were tears in her eyes as an apology for not replying. The
young man with the red hair took away the horses, and Jim, with his arm
around his wife's waist, ran toward the house and threw open the door
for her to enter. The intense heat of two great stoves struck in
their faces; and Annie saw the big burner, erected in all its black
hideousness in the middle of the front room, like a sort of household
hoodoo, to be constantly propitiated, like the gods of Greece; and in
the kitchen, the new range, with a distracted tea-kettle leaping on it,
as if it would like to loose its fetters and race away over the prairie
after its cousin, the locomotive.

It was a house of four rooms, and a glance revealed the fact that it had
been provided with the necessaries.

"I think we can be very comfortable here," said Jim, rather doubtfully.

Annie saw she must make some response. "I am sure we can be more than
comfortable, Jim," she replied. "We can be happy. Show me, if you
please, where my room is. I must hang my cloak up in the right place so
that I shall feel as if I were getting settled."

It was enough. Jim had no longer any doubts. He felt sure they were
going to be happy ever afterward.

It was Annie who got the first meal; she insisted on it, though both the
men wanted her to rest. And Jim hadn't the heart to tell her that, as
a general thing, it would not do to put two eggs in the corn-cake, and
that the beefsteak was a great luxury. When he saw her about to break an
egg for the coffee, however, he interfered.

"The shells of the ones you used for the cake will settle the coffee
just as well," he said. "You see we have to be very careful of eggs out
here at this season."

"Oh! Will the shells really settle it? This is what you must call
prairie lore. I suppose out here we find out what the real relations of
invention and necessity are--eh?"

Jim laughed disproportionately. He thought her wonderfully witty. And
he and the help ate so much that Annie opened her eyes. She had thought
there would be enough left for supper. But there was nothing left.

For the next two weeks Jim was able to be much with her; and they amused
themselves by decorating the house with the bright curtainings that
Annie had brought, and putting up shelves for a few pieces of china. She
had two or three pictures, also, which had come from her room in her old
home, and some of those useless dainty things with whic