r talked.
He harangued.

In the early spring Annie's baby was born,--a little girl with a nervous
cry, who never slept long at a time, and who seemed to wail merely from
distaste at living. It was Mrs. Dundy who came over to look after the
house till Annie got able to do so. Her eyes had that fever in them,
as ever. She talked but little, but her touch on Annie's head was more
eloquent than words. One day Annie asked for the glass, and Mrs. Dundy
gave it to her. She looked in it a long time. The color was gone from
her cheeks, and about her mouth there was an ugly tightening. But her
eyes flashed and shone with that same--no, no, it could not be that in
her face also was coming the look of half-madness! She motioned Mrs.
Dundy to come to her.

"You knew it was coming," she said, brokenly, pointing to the reflection
in the glass. "That first day, you knew how it would be."

Mrs. Dundy took the glass away with a gentle hand.

"How could I help knowing?" she said simply. She went into the next
room, and when she returned Annie noticed that the handkerchief stuck in
her belt was wet, as if it had been wept on.

A woman cannot stay long away from her home on a farm at planting time,
even if it is a case of life and death. Mrs. Dundy had to go home, and
Annie crept about her work with the wailing baby in her arms. The house
was often disorderly now; but it could not be helped. The baby had to
be cared for. It fretted so much that Jim slept apart in the mow of
the barn, that his sleep might not be disturbed. It was a pleasant, dim
place, full of sweet scents, and he liked to be there alone. Though he
had always been an unusual worker, he worked now more like a man who was
fighting off fate, than a mere toiler for bread.

The corn came up beautifully, and far as the eye could reach around
their home it tossed its broad green leaves with an oceanlike swelling
of sibilant sound. Jim loved it with a sort of passion. Annie loved
it, too. Sometimes, at night, when her fatigue was unbearable, and her
irritation wearing out both body and soul, she took her little one in
her arms and walked among the corn, letting its rustling soothe the baby
to sleep.

The heat of the summer was terrible. The sun came up in that blue sky
like a curse, and hung there till night came to comfort the blistering
earth. And one morning a terrible thing happened. Annie was standing
out of doors in the shade of those miserable little oaks, ironing, wh