Mr. Jones gave me a wink and drove away.

Our agreement was this—­first, that he and Mr. Rollins, the owner of the other team, should be paid in full before night; and second, that Mrs. Jones should furnish us our dinner, in which the chief dish should be a pot-pie from the rabbit caught by Merton, and that Mr. Jones should bring everything over at one o’clock.

My wife was so absorbed in unpacking her china, kitchen-utensils, and groceries that she was unaware of the flight of time, but at last she suddenly exclaimed, “I declare it’s dinner-time!”

“Not quite yet,” I said; “dinner will be ready at one.”

“It will?  Oh, indeed!  Since we are in the country we are to pick up what we can, like the birds.  You intend to invite us all down to the apple barrel, perhaps.”

“Certainly, whenever you wish to go; but we’ll have a hot dinner at one o’clock, and a game dinner into the bargain.”

“I’ve heard the boys’ guns occasionally, but I haven’t seen the game, and it’s after twelve now.”

“Papa has a secret—­a surprise for us,” cried Mousie; “I can see it in his eyes.”

“Now, Robert, I know what you’ve been doing.  You have asked Mrs. Jones to furnish a dinner.  You are extravagant, for I could have picked up something that would have answered.”

“No; I’ve been very prudent in saving your time and strength, and saving these is sometimes the best economy in the world.  Mousie is nearer right.  The dinner is a secret, and it has been furnished chiefly by one of the family.”

“Well, I’m too busy to guess riddles to-day; but if my appetite is a guide, it is nearly time we had your secret.”

“You would not feel like that after half an hour over a hot stove.  Now you will be interrupted, in getting to rights, only long enough to eat your dinner.  Then Mousie and Merton and Winnie will clear up everything, and be fore night you will feel settled enough to take things easy till to-morrow.”

“I know your thoughtfulness for me, if not your secret,” she said, gratefully, and was again putting things where, from housewifely experience, she knew they would be handy.

Mr. and Mrs. Jamison had clung to their old-fashioned ways, and had done their cooking over the open fire, using the swinging crane which is now employed chiefly in pictures.  This, for the sake of the picture it made, we proposed to keep as it had been left, although at times it might answer some more prosaic purpose.

At the eastern end of the house was a single room, added unknown years ago, and designed to be a bed-chamber.  Of late it had been used as a general storage and lumber room, and when I first inspected the house, I had found little in this apartment of service to us.  So I had asked Mr. Jones to remove all that I did not care for, and to have the room cleansed, satisfied that it would just suit my wife as a kitchen.  It was large, having windows facing the east and south,