When I had brought the wood, she presented me with a pail of hot water and pointed at the dishes on the breakfast-table. "Never!" I cried, revolted. "Then I suppose I must do them--" She looked pensively at her scorched finger-tip, and, pursing up her red lips, blew a gentle breath to cool it. "I'll do the dishes," I said. Splashing and slushing the cups and saucers about in the hot water, I reflected upon the events of the last few days. The dog, stupefied by unwonted abundance of food, lay in the sunshine, sleeping the sleep of repletion; the pretty stenographer, all rosy from her culinary exertions, was removing the pies and setting them in neat rows to cool. "There," she said, with a sigh; "now I will dry the dishes for you.... You didn't mention the fact, when you engaged me, that I was also expected to do general housework." "I didn't engage you," I said, maliciously; "you engaged me, you know." She regarded me disdainfully, nose uptilted. "How thoroughly disagreeable you can be!" she said. "Dry your own dishes. I'm going for a stroll." "May I join--" "You may _not_! I shall go so far that you cannot possibly discover me." I watched her forestward progress; she sauntered for about thirty yards along the lake and presently sat down in plain sight under a huge live-oak. A few moments later I had completed my task as general bottle-washer, and I cast about for something to occupy me. First I approached and politely caressed the satiated dog. He woke up, regarded me with dully meditative eyes, yawned, and went to sleep again. Never a flop of tail to indicate gratitude for blandishments, never the faintest symptom of canine appreciation. Chilled by my reception, I moused about for a while, poking into boxes and bundles; then raised my head and inspected the landscape. Through the vista of trees the pink shirt-waist of the pretty stenographer glimmered like a rose blooming in the wilderness. From whatever point I viewed the prospect that pink spot seemed to intrude; I turned my back and examined the jungle, but there it was repeated in a hundred pink blossoms among the massed thickets; I looked up into the tree-tops, where pink mosses spotted the palms; I looked out over the lake, and I saw it in my mind's eye pinker than ever. It was certainly a case of pink-eye. "I'll go for a stroll, too; it's a free country," I muttered. After I had strolled in a complete circle I found myself within three feet of a pink shirt-waist. "I beg your pardon," I said; "I had no inten--" "I thought you were never coming," she said, amiably. "How is your finger?" I asked. She held it up. I took it gingerly; it was smooth and faintly rosy at the tip. "Does it hurt?" I inquired. "Dreadfully. Your hands feel so cool--" After a silence she said, "Thank you, that has cooled the burning." "I am determined," said I, "to expel the fire from your finger if it takes hours and hours." And I seated myself with that intention.