Life had reduced itself to necessities; things had to be ruthlessly rearranged for meeting conditions. She loved her own room to sleep in. She needed it. But she had given that up because it was too cold, because she could not do any more work. There was something that made her cringe in the thought of their sharing a bed, not because of love of being together, but because of the necessity of fighting the cold. And it made crowded quarters downstairs. She began "picking up" the room now. Things were piled up on the sewing machine, on the reading table. It seemed impossible to keep them put away. She tried hard to keep the room an attractive place to sit in, but it was in disorder, uninviting, most of the time. Often, after doing the kitchen work, she would clean it all up with the idea of making it attractive to sit in, then would be too utterly tired to enjoy it. She lagged in putting things away now; she would stand holding them helplessly, not knowing where to put them; she got sick of it and just threw some of them into a closet, anything to get them out of sight for the time. She knew that was not the way to do, that it would make it harder another time. She felt like crying. It seemed things had got ahead of her, that she was swamped by them, and somehow she did not have the spirit, or the strength, to get a new start, make a new plan. Finally she had the room looking a little less slovenly, not so sordid, and was about to sit down with her magazine. But the lamp was flickering, and then she remembered that she had not filled it that day. She picked the lamp up and slowly, drooping, started for the kitchen. She gave the can an angry little tilt and the oil overflowed on the table. She was biting her lips as she went about looking for a cloth to wipe it up. She heard sleigh bells and knew Stuart was coming. Hastily she washed the oil from her hands, she always hated herself when her hands smelled of kerosene, and began getting things ready for supper. Stuart came hurrying and stamping in after putting the horse away, quickly banging the door shut and standing there pounding his feet and rubbing his stiffened hands. "Fearfully cold?" she inquired, hurriedly getting out the box of codfish she was going to cream for their supper. "Cold!" he scoffed, as if in scorn for the inadequacy of the word. After a minute he came up to the stove. "I was afraid," he said, holding his right hand in his left, "that it had got these fingers." He took off his big bear-skin coat. A package he had taken from the pocket of it he threw over on the kitchen table. "Don't throw the bacon there, Stuart," hurriedly advised Ruth, busy with the cream sauce she was making, "I've just spilled oil there." "Heavens!" he said irritably, shoving the bacon farther back. His tone made Ruth's hand tremble. "If you think I'm so careless you might fill the lamps yourself," she said tremulously.