‘Well, I wasn’t very good at walking at that time. You see, I was only three years old.’ Frank sat for a few minutes absorbing it. ‘You little wretch!’ he said at last. ‘Oh you dear old goose! I feel so much better.’ ‘You horror!’ ‘I had to get level with you over my forty predecessors. You old Bluebeard! But I did harrow you a little—didn’t I?’ ‘Harrow me! I’m raw all over. It’s a nightmare. O Maude, how could you have the heart?’ ‘Oh, it was lovely—beautiful!’ ‘It was dreadful.’ ‘And how jealous you were! Oh, I _am_ so glad!’ ‘I don’t think,’ said Frank, as he put his arms round her, ‘that I ever quite realised before—’ And just then Jemima came in with the tray. CONCERNING MRS. BEETON FRANK CROSSE had only been married some months when he first had occasion to suspect that his wife had some secret sorrow. There was a sadness and depression about her at times, for which he was unable to account. One Saturday afternoon he happened to come home earlier than he was expected, and entering her bedroom suddenly, he found her seated in the basket-chair in the window, with a large book upon her knees. Her face, as she looked up at him with a mixed expression of joy and of confusion, was stained by recent tears. She put the book hastily down upon the dressing-stand. ‘Maude, you’ve been crying.’ ‘No, Frank, no!’ ‘O Maude, you fibber! Remove those tears instantly.’ He knelt down beside her and helped. ‘Better now?’ ‘Yes, dearest, I am quite happy.’ ‘Tears all gone?’ ‘Quite gone.’ ‘Well, then, explain!’ ‘I didn’t mean to tell you, Frank!’ She gave the prettiest, most provocative little wriggles as her secret was drawn from her. ‘I wanted to do it without your knowing. I thought it would be a surprise for you. But I begin to understand now that my ambition was much too high. I am not clever enough for it. But it is disappointing all the same.’ Frank took the bulky book off the table. It was Mrs. Beeton’s _Book of Household Management_. The open page was headed, ‘General Observations on the Common Hog,’ and underneath was a single large tear-drop. It had fallen upon a woodcut of the Common Hog, in spite of which Frank solemnly kissed it, and turned Maude’s trouble into laughter. ‘Now you are all right again. I do hate to see you crying, though you never look more pretty. But tell me, dear, what was your ambition?’ ‘To know as much as any woman in England about housekeeping. To know as much as Mrs. Beeton. I wanted to master every page of it, from the first to the last.’ ‘There are 1641 of them,’ said Frank, turning them over. ‘I know. I felt that I should be quite old before I had finished. But the last part, you see, is all about wills, and bequests, and homeopathy, and things of that kind. We could do it later. It is the early part that I want to learn now—but it _is_ so hard.’ ‘But why do you wish to do it, Maude?’ ‘Because I want you to be as happy as Mr. Beeton.’ ‘I’ll bet I am.’