e were filling--I was there only a few hours. I found a
little old white house, on a river bank, with big trees over it. It was
on a foundation of old stones, that had been painted white, and there
was an orchard, with a stone wall. The man wanted eighteen hundred
dollars for it."

"Is THAT all?" Martie asked, amazed.

"That's all. I sat there and talked to him for awhile."

"Well?" said Martie, as he stopped.

"Well, nothing," he answered, after a moment's pause. "Only I've been
thinking about it ever since--what it would be to live there, and
write, and walk about that little farm! Funny, isn't it? Eighteen
hundred dollars--not much, only I'll never have it. And you are another
poor man's wife--only not mine! Do you believe in God?"

"You know I do!" she answered, laughing, but a little shaken by his
seriousness.

"You think GOD manages things this way?"

"John, don't talk like a high school boy!"

"I suppose it sounds that way," he said mildly, and he rose suddenly
from his chair. "Well, I have to go!" He looked at her keenly. "But you
don't look very well, Martie," he said. "You've no colour at all. Is it
the weather?"

"John, what a baby you are!" But Martie was amazed, under her flush of
laughter, at his simplicity. Could it be possible that he did not know?
"I am expecting something very precious here one of these days," she
said. He looked at her with a polite smile, entirely uncomprehending.
"Surely you know that we--that I--am going to have another baby, John?"
she asked.

She saw the muscles of his face stiffen, and the blood rise. He looked
at her steadily. A curious silence hung between them.

"Didn't you know?" Martie pursued lightly.

"No," he said at last thickly, "I didn't know." He gave her a look
almost frightening in its wildness; shot to the heart, he might have
managed just such a smile. He made a frantic gesture with his hands.
"Of course--" he said at random. "Of course--a baby!" He walked across
the room to look at a picture on the wall. "That's rather--pretty!" he
said in a suffocating voice. Suddenly he came back, and sat close
beside her; his face was pale. "Martie," he said pitifully, "it's
dangerous for you--you're not strong, and if you--if you die, you
know----You look pale now, and you're so thin. I don't know anything
about it, but I wish it was over!"

Tears sprang to Martie's eyes, but they were tears of exquisite joy.
She laid a warm hand over his.

"Why, John, dea