her,
but when they put on her stays it was quite clear that she had grown
stouter, and she cried out, "I'm quite a little mother!" But the nurse
said her figure would come back all right. Ned's return had been
delayed, and this she regarded as fortunate, for there was no doubt
that in a month she would be able to meet him, slight and graceful as
she had ever been.

As soon as she was able she went for long walks on the hills, and every
day she improved in health and in figure; and when she read Ned's
letter saying he would be in Cork in a few days she felt certain he
would see no change in her. She opened her dress and could discern no
difference; perhaps a slight wave in the breast's line; she was not
quite sure and she hoped Ned would not notice it. And she chose a white
dress. Ned liked her in white, and she tied it with a blue sash; she
put on a white hat trimmed with china roses, and the last look
convinced her that she had never looked prettier.

"I never wore so becoming a hat," she said. She walked slowly so as not
to be out of breath, and, swinging her white parasol over the tops of
her tan boots, she stood at the end of the platform waiting for the
train to come up.

"I had expected to see you pale," he said, "and perhaps a little
stouter, but you are the same, the very same." And saying that he would
be able to talk to her better if he were free from his bag, he gave it
to a boy to carry. And they strolled down the warm, dusty road.

They lived about a mile and a half from the station, and there were
great trees and old crumbling walls, and, beyond the walls, water
meadows, and it was pleasant to look over the walls and watch the
cattle grazing peacefully. And to-day the fields were so pleasant that
Ned and Ellen could hardly speak from the pleasure of looking at them.

"You've seen nothing more beautiful in America, have you, Ned?"

There was so much to say it was difficult to know where to begin, and
it was delicious to be stopped by the scent of the honeysuckle. Ned
gathered some blossoms to put into his wife's dress, but while admiring
her dress and her hat and her pretty red hair he remembered the letter
he had written to her in answer to her telegram.

"I've had many qualms about the letter I wrote you in answer to your
telegram. After all, a child's right upon the mother is the first right
of all. I wrote the letter in a hurry, and hardly knew what I was
saying."

"We got an excellent nurse,