To turn her mind from evil thoughts, she set to work immediately, and busied herself with little duties, little economies, little cares, little troubles. But the virtues of housekeeping were just those for which she had not prepared herself. Her first leg of mutton was roasted down to the proportions of a frizzled shank, and her first pudding was baked to the colour and consistency of a badly burnt brick. She did not mend rapidly as a cook, but Pete ate of all that his faultless teeth could grind through, and laid the blame on his appetite when his digestion failed. She strove by other industries to keep alive a sense of her duty as a wife. Buying rolls of paper at the paperhanger's, she set about papering every closet in the house. The patterns did not join and the paste did not adhere. She initialled in worsted the new blankets sent by Grannie, with a P and a Q and a K intertwined. Than she overhauled the linen; turned out every room twice a week; painted every available wooden fixture with paint which would not dry because she had mixed it herself to save a sixpence a stone and forgotten the turpentine. Pete held up his hands in admiration at all her failures. She had thought it would be easy to be a good wife to a good husband. It was hard--hard for any one, hardest of all for her. There are the ruins of a happy woman in the bosom of every over-indulged wife. She could not keep to anything long, but every night for a week she gave Pete lessons in reading, writing, and arithmetic. His reading was laborious, his spelling was eccentric, his figuring he did on the tips of his heavy fingers, and his writing he executed with his tongue in his cheek and his ponderous thumb down on the pen nib. “What letter is that, Pete?” she said, pointing with her knitting needle to the page of a book of poems before them. Pete looked up in astonishment. “Is it _me_ you're asking, Kitty? If _you_ don't know, _I_ don't know.” “That's a capital M, Pete.” “Is it, now?” said Pete, looking at the letter with a searching eye. “Goodness me, the straight it's like the gate of the long meadow.” “And that's a capital A.” “Sakes alive, the straight it's like the coupling of the cart-house.” “And that's a B.” “Gough bless me, d'ye say so? But the straight it's like the hoof of a bull, though.” “And M A B spells Mab--Queen Mab,” said Kate, going on with her knitting. Pete looked up at her with eyes wide open. “I suppose, now,” he said, in a voice of pride, “I suppose you're knowing all the big spells yourself, Kitty?” “Not all. Sometimes I have to look in the dictionary,” said Kate. She showed him the book and explained its uses. “And is it taiching you to spell every word, Kitty?” he asked. “Every ordinary word,” said Kate. “My gough!” said Pete, touching the book with awe.