ed.
Presently Isabeau would come to her to say noncommittally, but with
watchful, white-rimmed eyes, that Mist' Bans'ter he didn' want no
breakfuss, he jus' take hisse'f off. For the rest of the day, Martie
carried a heart of lead.

Mentally, morally, physically, the little family steadily descended.
With Martie too ill to do more than drag herself through the autumn
days, Wallace idle and ugly, Isabeau overworked and discontented, and
bills accumulating on every side, there was no saving element left.
Desperately the wife and mother plodded on; the children must have milk
and bread, the rent-collector must be pacified if not satisfied.
Everything else was unimportant. Her own appearance mattered nothing,
the appearance of the house mattered nothing. She pinned the children's
clothing when their buttons disappeared; she slipped a coat wearily
over her house-dress, and went to the delicatessen store five minutes
before dinner-time. She was thin enough now,--Martie, who had always
longed to be thin. Sometimes, sitting on the side of an unmade bed,
with a worn little shirt of Ted's held languidly in her hands, she
would call the maid.

"Isabeau! Hasn't Teddy a clean shirt?"

"No, MA'AM! You put two them shirts in yo' basket 'n' says how you's
going to fix 'em!"

"I must get at those shirts," Martie would muse helplessly. "Come, Ted,
look what you're doing! Pay attention, dear!"

"Man come with yo meat bill, Mis' Ban'ster," Isabeau might add,
lingering in the doorway. "Ah says you's OUT."

"Thank you, Isabeau." Perhaps Martie would laugh forlornly. "Never
mind--things must change! We can't go on THIS way!"

Suddenly, she was ill. Without warning, without the slip or stumble or
running upstairs that she was quite instinctively avoiding, the
accident befell. Martie, sobered, took to her bed, and sent Isabeau
flying for Dr. Converse, the old physician whose pleasant wife had
often spoken to Teddy in the market. Strange--strange, that she who so
loved children should be reduced now to mere thankfulness that the
little life was not to be, mere gratitude for an opportunity to lie
quiet in bed!

"For I suppose I should stay in bed for a few days?" Martie asked the
doctor. Until she was told she might get up. Very well, but he must
remember that she had a husband and two children to care for, and make
that soon.

Dr. Converse did not smile in answer. After a while she knew why. The
baffling weakness did not go, the pai