Matter for Heartache Three days had passed away, and life had dropped into its accustomed monotony again.

Mrs.Burton said there never was anything to vary the sameness of existence at Roaring Water Portage unless someone was in danger of his or her life, and really events had a way of proving her to be right.

When Katherine had rushed off in such a hurry that day, to help Mary Selincourt out of her fix, Mrs.Burton had left her sewing, and, taking her sister's work in hand, had finished cleaning the shelves, then restored to them the various canisters and boxes according to her own ideas of neatness, instead of with any remembrance as to how they had been arranged previously.
On reaching home that afternoon, wet, cold, weary, and with chill foreboding in her heart, Katherine's first sensation was one of lively gratitude to Nellie for having dispersed the confusion she had left behind when she departed so hurriedly.

But when a customer came in a little later for a quarter of a pound of mustard, and it took half an hour of hard searching to find it, Katherine began to wonder whether after all it would not have been easier to have been left to deal singlehanded with the confusion on the floor, for at least she had known where to find things.
Then someone wanted corn-flour, which entailed a still longer search; but the culminating point came when Mrs.M'Kree sent down in hot haste for carbonate of soda and dried mint, to make some remedy for an unexpected attack of dyspepsia.

It took exactly one hour and ten minutes by the clock to find the carbonate of soda, followed by ten minutes' active search for the mint.