that Keats tells us that:

"Love in a hut with water and a crust,
Is--Love forgive us!--cinders, ashes, dust!"

If Love were really there, "cinders, ashes, dust" could not be, and the
water and crust may, by our Mary's skillful treatment, be transformed
into a refreshing beverage and an appetizing _entrée_. My faith in the
powers of John's wife is great, and if John be satisfied, and tells her
that he has the best little love-mate and housekeeper in the world, can
she complain?




CHAPTER V.

A MISTAKE ON JOHN'S PART.


It is not discreditable to the sex to assert that a man is first
attracted marriage-ward by the desire of the eye. He falls in love, as a
rule, because she who presently becomes the only woman in the universe
to him is goodly to view, if not actually beautiful. Goodliness being
largely contingent upon apparel, it follows that Mary dresses for
John--up to the marriage-day. He who descries signs of slatternliness in
his beloved prior to that date, may well be shocked to disillusionment.
As a girl in a home where the mother takes upon herself the heaviest
work, and spares her pretty daughter's hands and clothes all the soil
and wear she can avert, Mary must be indolent or phenomenally