“Oh, well, we’ve been here for thirteen years and we know the ways of the country by now,” deprecated Mr. Sharp.

“Nora’s about as green as a new dollar bill, I guess.”

“I fear that’s too true,” Nora admitted smilingly.

“There’s a lot you can’t be expected to know at first,” protested their neighbor.  “I’ll say good night, then, and good luck.”

“Well, good night then, Sid, if you won’t stay.  And say, it was real good of you to come and fetch us in the rig.”

“Oh, that’s all right.  Good night to you, Mrs. Taylor.”

“Goodnight.”

Pulling his cap well down over his ears, Mr. Sharp took his departure.  In the silence they could hear him drive away.

Nora went over to the stove again and made a pretense of examining the fire, conscious all the time that her husband was looking at her intently.

“I guess it must seem funny to you to hear him call you Mrs. Taylor, eh?”

“No.  He isn’t the first person to do so.  The clergyman’s wife did, you remember.”

“That’s so.  How are you getting on with that fire?”

“All right.”

“I guess I’ll get some water; I’ll only be a few minutes.”

He took a pail and went out.  Nora could hear him pumping down in the yard.  Getting up hurriedly from her knees before the stove, she took up the lamp and held it high above her head.

This untidy, comfortless, bedraggled room was now hers, her home!  She would not have believed that any human habitation could be so hopelessly dreary.

The walls were not even sealed, as at the brother’s.  Tacked, here and there, against the logs were pictures cut from illustrated papers, unframed, just as they were.  The furniture, with the exception of the inevitable rocking-chair, worn and shabby from hard use, had apparently been made by Frank, himself, out of old packing boxes.  The table had been fashioned by the same hand out of similar materials.  On a shelf over the rusty stove stood a few battered pots and pans; evidently the entire kitchen equipment.  There were two doors, one by which she had entered; the other, leading supposedly into another room.  The one window was small and low.  Even in this light she could see that a spider had spun a huge web across it.  In the dark corners of the room all sorts of objects seemed to be piled without any pretense of order.

She lowered the lamp and listened.  Yes, she could still hear the pump.  With a furtive, guilty air she hurried to complete her examination before he should surprise her.

One of the corners contained a battered suitcase and a nondescript pile of old clothes, the other was piled high with yellowing copies of what she saw was the Winnipeg Free Press and a few old magazines.

“The library!” she said bitterly, and was surprised to find that she had spoken aloud.  Insane people did that, she had heard.  Was she——?