d Taft, however, heartily joined my committee, and
the "Cliff Dwellers," a union of workers in the fine arts, resulted. As
president of the organization, I set to work on plans for housing the
club, and for months I was absorbed in this work.

On the eighteenth of June, 1908, in the midst of my work on the club
affairs, another daughter was born to us, a vigorous and shapely babe,
with delicate limbs, gray eyes, and a lively disposition, and while my
wife, who came through this ordeal much better than before, was debating
a choice of names for her, Mary Isabel gravely announced that she had
decided to call her sister "Marjorie Christmas," for the reason, as she
explained, that these were the nicest names she knew. Trusting first
born!--she did not realize the difference which this new-found playmate
was about to make in her life, and her joy in being permitted to hold
the tiny stranger in her arms was pathetic.

My own attitude toward "Marjorie Christmas" was not indifferent but I
did not receive her with the same intensity of interest with which I had
welcomed my first child. Her place was not waiting for her as was the
case of Mary Isabel. She was a lovely infant and perhaps I would have
taken her to my arms with keen paternal pride had it not been for the
realization that in doing so I was neglecting her sister whose
comradeship with me had been so close (so full of exquisite moments)
that it could not be transferred to another daughter, no matter how
alluring. A second child is--a second child.

To further complicate our problem, Constance (as we finally called her),
passed under the care of a nursemaid, and for two years I had very
little to do with her. I seldom sang this child to sleep as I had done
countless times with Mary Isabel. She did not ride on the crook of my
elbow, or climb on my back, or look at picture books with me, until she
was nearly three years old. We regained her, but we could not regain the
hours of companionship we had sacrificed. This experience enables me to
understand the unhappiness which comes to so many homes, in which the
children are only boarders, foundlings in the care of nurses and
governesses. My poverty, my small dwelling have given me the most
precious memories of my daughters in their childish innocence.

[Connie, who is now as tall as her mother and signs her drawings
"Constance Hamlin Garland" is looking over my shoulder at this moment
with a sly smile. It has long been kn