“_You_ teach me to cook! _I_, my uncle’s housekeeper for two years, while you were wandering about from town to town!” exclaimed Rosalie. Mark laughed, and bade her remember that when she was “uncle’s” housekeeper she had experienced cooks at her command, and that her housekeeping duties and responsibilities consisted in carrying the keys and ordering what she pleased to have for dinner. And he further advised her to recollect that she was not to snap up her liege lord in that way, either! Whereupon Rose bade him mind his business and his briefs; for that she should snap him, and box his ears, too, whenever the spirit moved her. She! Mark snatched her, laughing, to his bosom, and half suffocated her with kisses, and then holding her tight, bade her do her wickedest. “And, Rose,” he exclaimed merrily, “I do not know why it is; but out here, in this cabin of the wilderness, with nobody but you for company, I feel as if the restraints of society and of maturity had fallen away, and restored me to the freedom and the wilfulness and the irresponsible wickedness of my boyhood. And _oh!_ little one, if you were only a great deal taller and stronger, what a wrestle we would have!” And he gazed down on her there, standing within his arms—so small, so fair, so perfectly helpless, so utterly in his power—and all the wantonness of youth fled from before her helplessness and her beauty, and a flood of unutterable tenderness rushed over his heart; and, still gazing upon her with infinite love, he said— “God forever bless you—you little, little, wee thing; you delicate, beautiful creature; and God forever forsake me, if ever, willingly, I give you a moment’s pain or sorrow!” Blushing deeply, Rose withdrew herself from his now yielding clasp, and, to cover her girlish embarrassment, took the new bucket and put it in his hands, requesting him to go to the spring, and bring her fresh water to fill the tea-kettle, and adding— “You shall see what nice biscuits and what nice tea I can make.” Mark took the pail and went out, and disappeared down the path. Rosalie, observing the floor littered, looked around for the broom to sweep it up; and then laughed to find that, with all their getting, they had got no _broom_. Mark came in with the pail of water, set it down, and said he would go and get some brush to kindle a fire. And while he was gone, Rosalie put water in a basin to wash her hands preparatory to making the biscuits; and _then_ she discovered that they had forgotten _soap_ also. And while she stood in dismay, wondering what else might have been omitted, Mark re-entered with a pile of brush on his shoulders, “like Christian with his bundle of sin,” he said. He threw it down upon the hearth, and began to look around, and then he broke into a gay, prolonged laugh. “What’s the matter, Mark? Are you daring to laugh at me, with my sleeves and skirt tucked up?”