When a Man Marries

s pressing subject of which was to be cook. Aunt Selina had slept quietly through the whole thing-we learned afterward that she

nd if Dal doesn't make good with the city fathers, you girls can get som

gested. "I hope you're not going

for nine reasonably intelligent people to boil eggs and make

was out of earshot, "Why nine of us? I thought Kit here, otherw

two people over-we didn't count Aunt Selina-he added another furnace-man and a trained nurse. Betty Mercer drew the trained nurse slip, and, of course, s

t the furnace, although neither of them had ever been nearer to a bucket of coal than the coupons on mining stock. Anne got the bedroom

ing on and stood over me and demanded unpleasantly, in a whisper, that I stop masquerading as another man's wife and gene

ned in a sea of lies; tell them that I am not only not married, but that I never intend to marry; tell them that we are a lot of idiots with noth

ned on his heel and left me. It looked as

pinning a sheet into a kimono, so she could take off her dinne

bout that. I watched her do it, for I remember thinking it was the sole

ugh sun to snap the house, and everybody knew that it was Max and his idiotic wager that had done it. He had made two or three conciliatory remarks, but no one would speak to him. His antics were so queer, however, that we were all wa

on, every one had to hail the suggestion with joy, and to offer his assistance, and Jimmy had to take Max's share of the furnace. So they took the scullery slip downstairs to the policeman, and gave Jim Max

room, "we retired between two and three-nearer three. So the theft occur

to the dressing room was open, and we found the

repeated. "Was any one out

all around somewhere about four, searching"-he glanced at me-"for a drink of

course," and "Sure, old man,"

to one side and told him about Bella. Hi

hiro, eh, Kit?" he asked delicately

while she took a nap on the kitchen table"-he groaned-"and-oh, Jim, you are such a goose! If I could only manage my own af

depths of brutality that I have never had

and she bullied you. Yes, she did. Now she's here, without your invitation, and she has to stay. It's your turn to bully

ice yourself on the altar

ike, in public," I replied, and after w

sitting by the register, with her furs on, and after one glance

en I pinched his arm, and he drew him

't imagine why you have put yourself in th

d on him

F in this

a wretched trick of yours, th

him a warning glance,

dly discreet, was it, to visit a bachelor establishment alone at ten o'clock at night? As far as my plotting to keep you here is concerned, I assure you

" she stormed. "I thought you were only

reeing to keep her real identity from Aunt Selina and Mr. Harbison, and to break the news of her presence to Anne and th

son and Aunt Selina in the upper hall. He was palpitating

a suspicion, perhaps of incredulity. "It's particularly unfortunate for her. You all know how high-strung

swallowed the butler story witho

e I shan't make it for her. But if you want to know my opinion, Mr. Harbison may be a fool

a, and we decided to call her that. But it turned out afterward that nobody could remember it in a hurry, and generally wh

try to make her feel at home, and to forget her deplorable situati

rin, anybody, just be cordial and glad to see her. I

d sympathetic, and not grinny-which was as hard as looking as if we

n a stool and a pillow behind her head. She did not even look at

a lot of frumps you all are! I had ho

eila said afterward, that kind

's presence to her, and fled to the kitchen. The Harbison man appeared while

kettle, set on the flame, will boil. That is not theory, however, that is early knowledge. 'Polly, put the kettle on

of amazement, alarm and dignity. No doubt we did look queer, still in parts of our evening clothes and I in the white silk

n the morning, and he is prepared to accept our hospitality. Flannigan, every person in this ho

ly, like dawn over a sleeping lake, a

many the time I've opened the carriage door for her, and she with her head in the air, and for all that, the pleasant smile. When any one around h

was not Bella, although he had not grasped the fact that I was usurping

white woman so perfectly at home in a civilized kitchen again, after two yea

dozens and hundreds of complicated-looking utensils, whose names I had never even heard, and I was dazed. I tried with some show of authority to instruct

em a Turkish bath, which is what you are describin', but I'll get the grease

it around his neck with the ease of practice. Then he cleared off the plates, eating w

s around this mornin'. In a week every one of us will be nursin' a sore arm or walkin' on one leg, beggin' your pardon, miss. The last

! And that awful stove stared at me, and the kettle began to hum, and Aunt Selina s

t she was still sniffling over her necklace, and said she didn't know anything about omelets and didn't care. Food would ch

nastily. "The simplest thing, if you don't mind my suggesting it, is to poison the coffee and kill the lot

. She finds a grievance and hugs it; she does ridicu

hat Mr. Harbison had discovered some eggs a

nt of my knowledge," he said, when I enter

own. It was quite clear that the domestic type of woman was his ideal, and I did not care to outrage his belief in me. So I took the

reat deal of dignity, "and since you w

s del

'll go over it slowly, bit by bit. We'll make a big fluffy om

g to remember exactly

ted. "Two eggs

. "If-if two isn't enough we can make

at me with

ught of that!" he remarked. "Wel

ant. I hoped he would; I said it as casually as I could, and

d. "Oh, yes, of course!" When I looked he had put one at each end of the table

n be

that cook book must have had a mean disposition. What's n

that recipe I was gone. It was like saying the alphab

ss you break it first." He picked up an egg and looked at it. "Separate!" he refle

se. I KNEW you would find it out." Then back to the re

n't it? I-upon my word, I never heard of folding an egg. A

else, and the first thing you know, you are having to tell a thousand, and trying to remember the ones you have told so you won't contradict yourself, and the very person you have tried to help turns on you and reproaches you for being untruthful! I leaned my elbows despondentl

bowl out to me and wa

, Flannigan and I have solved it. The mi

ly, but for two things: I should have greased the pan (but this was the book's fault; it didn't say) and I should have lighted the oven. Th

en went to look at the furnace. And Officer Timothy Flannigan ground the coffee and gave his opinion of the board of health in no stinted terms. As for

later. I put down the toaster-at least the Harbison man said it

to-to make you think I am not-that things are not what they seem to be-I mean, what

as he said, and told Flannigan about the robbery, and how, whether it was a joke or deadly earnest, somebody in the

as Mr. Harbison doing on the first floor of the house that night? Ice water, he had said

bered the eggs. We fished them out of the tea kett

. As she did not affect evening clothes this was entirely natural, but later on in the week, when the wretched things began to take, nobody dared