you, it isn't that I'm not proud of you and your success, but
you don't understand what a woman craves,--she doesn't want only to be a
good housekeeper, a good mother, but she wants to share a little, at
any rate, in the life of her husband, in his troubles as well as in his
successes. She wants to be of some little use, of some little help to
him."

My feelings were reduced to a medley.

"But you are a help to me--a great help," I protested.

She shook her head. "I wish I were," she said.

It suddenly occurred to me that she might be. I was softened, and
alarmed by the spectacle she had revealed of the widening breach between
us. I laid my hand on her shoulder.

"Well, I'll try to do better, Maude."

She looked up at me, questioningly yet gratefully, through a mist of
tears. But her reply--whatever it might have been--was forestalled by
the sound of shouts and laughter in the hallway. She sprang up and ran
to the door.

"It's the children," she exclaimed, "they've come home from Susan's
party!"

It begins indeed to look as if I were writing this narrative upside
down, for I have said nothing about children. Perhaps one reason for
this omission is that I did not really appreciate them, that I found
it impossible to take the same minute interest in them as Tom, for
instance, who was, apparently, not content alone with the six which he
possessed, but had adopted mine. One of them, little Sarah, said "Uncle
Tom" before "Father." I do not mean to say that I had not occasional
moments of tenderness toward them, but they were out of my thoughts much
of the time. I have often wondered, since, how they regarded me; how,
in their little minds, they defined the relationship. Generally, when I
arrived home in the evening I liked to sit down before my study fire and
read the afternoon newspapers or a magazine; but occasionally I went at
once to the nursery for a few moments, to survey with complacency the
medley of toys on the floor, and to kiss all three. They received my
caresses with a certain shyness--the two younger ones, at least, as
though they were at a loss to place me as a factor in the establishment.
They tumbled over each other to greet Maude, and even Tom. If I were an
enigma to them, what must they have thought of him? Sometimes I would
discover him on the nursery floor, with one or two of his own children,
building towers and castles and railroad stations, or forts to be
attacked and demolished by regiment