s becoming a strain.

At the allusion to his grandson, the rector's face lost immediately its
expression of forced pleasantness and relapsed into its look of genial
charm.

"You ought to be proud of that boy, Oliver," he observed, beaming.
"There's the making of a fine man in him, but you mustn't let Jinny
spoil him. It took all my strength and authority to keep Lucy from
ruining Jinny, and I've always said that my brother-in-law Tom Bland
would have been a first-rate fellow if it hadn't been for the way his
mother raised him. God knows, I like a woman to be wrapped up heart and
soul in her household--and I don't suppose anybody ever accused the true
Southern lady of lacking in domesticity--but if they have a failing,
which I refuse to admit, it is that they are almost too soft-hearted
where their children--especially their sons--are concerned."

"I used to tell Virginia that she gave in to Harry too much when he was
a baby," said Oliver, who was evidently not without convictions
regarding the rearing of his offspring; "but she hasn't been nearly so
bad about it since Jenny came. Jenny is the one I'm anxious about now.
She is a headstrong little beggar and she has learned already how to get
around her mother when she wants anything. It's been worse, too," he
added, "since we lost the last poor little chap. Ever since then
Virginia has been in mortal terror for fear something would happen to
the others."

"It was hard on her," said the rector. "We men can't understand how
women feel about a thing like that, though," he added gently. "I
remember when we lost our babies--you know we had three before Virginia
came, but none of them lived more than a few hours--that I thought Lucy
would die of grief and disappointment. You see they have all the burden
and the anxiety of it, and I sometimes think that a child begins to live
for a woman a long time before a man ever thinks of it as a human
being."

"I suppose you're right," returned Oliver in the softened tone which
proved to Susan that he was emotionally stirred. "I tried to be as
sympathetic with Virginia as I could, but--do you know?--I stopped to
ask myself sometimes if I could really understand. It seemed to her so
strange that I wasn't knocked all to pieces by the thing--that I could
go on writing as if nothing had happened."

"I am not sure that it isn't beyond the imagination of a man to enter
into a woman's most sacred feeling," remarked the rector, with a touc