"Never mind," he said, "We must try again on Monday."
"Yes; but I'm afraid the yeast may not be good this hot weather. Still, we can see. Jem, I did think it was what my hand found to do--"
"I haven't a bit of doubt about that, little woman," he answered. "How did you find time to make this nice pie, or did a fairy come in?"
Meg shook her head, while she was delighted with his praise.
"This is for to-morrow as well," she said, "because you know we agreed we'd only cook potatoes on Sunday."
"So we did; it could not be a better dinner."
"How nicely this oven will bake our potatoes while we are at service, Jem!"
"Everything's nice," answered Jem, smiling. "Meg, I shall not be home till four o'clock this afternoon; but if you'll be ready we'll take a penny boat, and have a turn up the river. This is our honeymoon, you know."
"Oh, Jem," she said, leaning her head on his shoulder, "I hope I shall be all you wish!"
He looked down at her with eyes that said a great deal, but he only answered--
So Meg set to and made her rooms as clean and beautiful for Sunday as she could devise. It was true, they were already nearly as clean as they could be; but London smoke penetrates everywhere, and Meg knew that a little sweeping and scrubbing would do no harm. When it was nearly four, she went up to ask a favour of her mother-in-law.
"Jem's going to take me up the river," she said, smilingly; "but I'm afraid the fire will go out, and there'll be no hot water for tea. Would you think it a trouble to look to it for me, mother?"
"Not a bit, my dear. But if Jem and you are going out, let out your fire this hot day, and come up and have tea with me when you come in. I was thinking I'd come and ask you."
Meg promised to do so if Jem were agreeable, and hastened away to take off what little fire she had, and to lay it again to be ready whenever it might be needed. And then she stood looking out of the window watching for Jem.
The look-out was not as cheering as the look-in. Tall sombre houses across the narrow street, with dirty tattered blinds, bedsteads half across windows, dirty children leaning out and risking their necks, here and there a few sickly plants. Such was her outlook in front. Behind it was still worse. A double row of forlorn little courts, where stunted fowls were kept, where badly-washed clothes were hung from Saturday to Saturday all the week round, where rubbish was thrown, where children made mud-pies, where old boxes and firewood were heaped, and every imaginable untidiness congregated to depress the spirits and health of the crowded houses abutting on it.