stairs; happier
still when we re-entered the flat two hours later, and not a sound came
from behind that closed door. I undressed the children, and the maid
tiptoed in with their tea with the air of a conspirator in a dark and
stealthy plot.

"Not a sound out of her since you left! Poor thing! First chance of a
bit of peace and quietness she's had for many a long day."

"Well, Mary, you and I are going to give her plenty more!" I said
graciously, and Mary made me a slice of buttered toast on the spot to
seal the partnership.

Tea was over when the door opened, and a sleepy, flushed face peeped
round the door to look at the clock. When she saw the hands pointing to
five, she looked as guilty as if she had robbed the bank.

Oh, it's a glorious thing to be able to help other people! It gives one
a warm, glowey feeling about the heart which comes in no other way.
These last days I have just lived for the moment when I could tuck that
poor little woman in her cosy bed, and the other moment when I saw her
rested, freshened face on rising. Even at the end of one week she
looked a different creature, and felt it too.

"Actually, dear Miss Harding, I begin to feel as if I--I should like a
new hat!" she said to me one day over tea. "Do you know the feeling? I
think it is the best sign of convalescence a woman could have. For
months, almost for years, I have not cared what I wore. Something to
cover my head--that was all that was needed. To be always tired--
deadly, hopelessly tired--takes the spirit out of one."

"No one should go on being too tired. It's very wrong to allow it."

She looked at me; a long look, affectionate, grateful, reproachfully
amused.

"My dear, you live alone, and you have two maids. Evidently--excuse
me--you have a comfortable income. My husband's business has been
steadily falling off for the last two years. It is not his fault; he
works like a horse; no man could have done more, but circumstances have
been against him. We keep one maid, who washes, bakes, and cooks, while
I tend the babies, make their clothes and my own, knit, and mend, and
patch, and darn, take the children out, bathe them, put them to bed,
attend to them through the night, do the housekeeping by day, and
struggle over the bills when they are in bed. Bobby is three years and
a half old, and has had bronchitis and measles. Baby is eleven months,
and cuts her teeth with croup. Between them came the little one