Arthur laughed joyously. Her beauty dazzled him. Then they went into the house that he had built and furnished with much loving care. Thursa was interested in everything; the shining new pots and pans gave her great delight--she said they were "such jolly little dears," but what were they all for? Arthur tried to explain, but Thursa became impatient at the mention of cooking and washing dishes, and cried out petulantly. "Why don't you tame a squaw and have her do all this? I simply loathe cooking or washing up. It is horrid, messy work, Arthur, and I really never can do it. I know I can't. I never stayed in our scullery at home for one minute. Of course my aunts would not have allowed me to stay anyway, but that isn't why. I simply detest work of that kind." Arthur's face showed his disappointment. "We will have to get some one to show you how," he said, after an unpleasant pause. "You will not dislike it so much after you learn how, Thursa. It is really pleasant work, housekeeping is, and I am sure you will learn to be a famous little housewife." "Don't bank too strong on it, Arthur. Isn't that the right word? Mr. Smeaton taught me that. This idea of having to cook has upset me dreadfully." She sat down in the rocking-chair and rocked herself in her agitation. "Arthur, I shall go staring mad if I have to mess around and try to cook. I know I shall. I feel it beginning on me, and I shall have rough hands, and my skin will get red and blotchy, just like a cook's, and there will always be a greasy smell on my clothes. I am going to cry, Arthur, I am, now, really, and nobody can stop me, and I do cry dreadfully when I start." "Oh, don't cry, Thursa!" Arthur pleaded, with all the helplessness of a man in the presence of tears. "Don't cry, dearest. You'll break my heart if you cry the first day you come into your new home. I don't want you to cook or work or do anything, only just stay with me and love me and let me look at you--you are too beautiful to ever have to work, darling." Contrary to her expectations, Thursa did not cry, but looked at Arthur with a very shrewd expression on her pretty face. "I'd rather stay here and take a chance on it--that's a Canadian word, too--than go back to the aunts and have to work antimacassars and put up with them trailing around after me always--that was perfectly maddening--but it seems to me--" she went over to Arthur's new sideboard and looked critically into the glass--"it seems to me a girl like me--you see I am not what you might call a fright, am I, Arthur?--and here in Canada there are abundant opportunities for good marriages--I think I really should do pretty well." Arthur stood beside her looking at her image in the glass. When her meaning became clear he turned away hastily to hide the hurt her words had given him. "You mean I am not good enough for you. You are quite right, I am not. You are a queen among women, Thursa."