rivilege to have had her, even for those
brief thirteen months.

To have joys in common is the dream of man and wife. We had supposed
that love was based on mutual _happiness_. And Mother and I had been
happy together; we had been walking arm in arm under blue skies, and we
knew how much we meant to each other. But just how much we _needed_ each
other neither of us really knew--until we had to share a common sorrow.

To be partners in a sacred memory is a divine bond. To be partners in a
little mound, in one of God's silent gardens, is the closest
relationship which man and woman can know on this earth. Our lives had
been happy before; now they had been made beautiful.

So it was with the home. It began to mean more to us, as we began each
to mean more to the other. The bedroom in which our baby fell asleep
seemed glorified. Of course there were the lonely days and weeks and
months when everything we touched or saw brought back the memory of her.
I came home many an evening to find on Mother's face the mark of tears;
and I knew she had been living over by herself the sorrow of it all.

I learned how much braver the woman has to be than the man. I could go
into town, where there was the contagion of good cheer; and where my
work absorbed my thoughts and helped to shut out grief. But not so with
Mother! She must live day by day and hour by hour amid the scenes of her
anguish. No matter where she turned, something reminded her of the joy
we had known and lost. Even the striking clock called back to her mind
the hour when something should have been done for the baby.

"I _must_ have another little girl," she sobbed night after night. "I
_must_ have another little girl!"

And once more the way out was provided. We heard of a little girl who
was to be put out for adoption; she was of good but unfortunate parents.
We proposed to adopt her.

I have heard many arguments against adopting children, but I have never
heard a good one. Even the infant doomed to die could enrich, if only
for a few weeks, the lives of a childless couple, and they would be
happier for the rest of their days in the knowledge that they had tried
to do something worthy in this world and had made comfortable the brief
life of a little one.

"What if the child should turn out wrong?" I hear often from the lips of
men and women.

"What of that?" I reply. "You can at least be happy in the thought that
you have tried to do something for another."

T