e that, it
means that the whole scheme of things is wrong. Why should children take
after a bad parent more than a good one? Why should they be weak rather
than strong? If you're logical, what you say means that the world is
getting worse and worse. And everyone knows it's getting better every
minute--"

"I'd like to see it," said Mrs. King.

"Besides," went on Marcella, "besides, if I had a baby I'd build him so
strong, I'd make him so good his father would simply get strong and good
because he couldn't fight the strength and goodness all round him! I'd
build a wall of strength round the child--I'd pull down the pillars of
the heavens to make him strong--I'd clothe him in fires--There, I do
talk rubbish, don't I?" she added, quietly as she turned away. But Mrs.
King's words stuck: she pushed them forcibly away from her mind: they
would not go, and sank deep down; they came back in dreams, tormenting.
She dreamed often of a little child starving and cold out in the Domain,
while the southerly winds lashed rain at him--dreams of a little boy
with Louis's brown eyes--a little boy who gnawed his nails--and
stammered--and grew old--and wavered--and shook in drink delirium.

She refused the dreams house-room in her conscious thoughts. She looked
at the shining billy and big enamelled mugs they had bought that day, at
the bright brown leather straps that smelt so pleasantly new, fastened
round two grey and two brown blankets. Louis came in and made her strap
the two blankets on her back to see if they tired her. In spite of the
heat of the day she scarcely felt them.

"This is what they call Matilda," he told her, weighing the swag in his
hand.

"I can carry you both if you get tired," said she, looking from Matilda
to him.

She had asked her uncle for ten pounds. He characteristically made no
comments about her omission to mention a husband when she saw him at
Melbourne, and remarked that they would be very pleased to see her and
her husband any time at Wooratonga. When he proved his unquestioning
kindness she wished she had not had to ask him for money.

That night they packed. There was a new lodger downstairs who proved
very helpful. He had come from the Never-Never Land to knock down a
cheque in Sydney; in the ordinary course of things he would have been
blind to the world till the cheques were all spent. The night of his
arrival, when he was only softened by a few drinks after six months'
abstinence, the Salvat