"There is something here that looks like gravel," she called. He rushed
to her side. It was cereal. He found other supplies, too, a little salt,
sugar, coffee, and a jar of bacon.

"How clever of you to know what they all are," she murmured, and he felt
as if he had invented them out of thin air, like an Eastern magician.

He carried them back to the kitchen. "I wonder if you'd get the coffee
grinder," he said.

She hadn't the faintest idea what a coffee grinder looked like, but she
went away to find it, and came back presently with an object strange
enough to serve any purpose.

"Is this it?" she asked.

"That's a meat chopper," he answered, and then laughed. "You're not a
very good housekeeper, are you?"

"Of course not," she said. "Did you ever know an agreeable woman who was?
Good housekeepers are always bores, because they can never for an instant
get their minds off the most tiresome things in the world like bills, and
how the servants are behaving. All clever women are bad housekeepers, and
so they always find some one like you to take care of them."

He was putting the cereal to boil, and answered only after a second.
"Perhaps you'll think me old-fashioned, but I cannot help respecting the
art of housekeeping."

"Oh, so do I in its place," replied Miss Fenimer. "My maid does the whole