cate enough for my baby's
body? Nothing harsh shall touch my darling; he must have the best, and
the best is not good enough for him. We will buy the most beautiful
things in the world for my son."

And she ordered the lengths in a voice which cooed; she bought lawn
and flannel, and great skeins of wool, and lace fit for fairies; and
she sought, as if trying to remember the persecution of the purse, for
bargains in blue ribbon, but by that time Osborn was too exalted to
permit bargaining. He, too, was saying within himself:

"Shan't my boy have the best? When he's little and weak shan't I win
it for him? And when he's grown and strong, won't he win it for
himself, by Jove!"

He bought the blue ribbon.

They had spent one of the two pounds, and there seemed very little for
it, of those fine things fit for a baby; but Marie stopped short after
the spending of that sum. "It's enough to begin on," she urged; "when
I've finished with that I'll get more." And she whispered, when the
attendant's back was turned: "I shall squeeze it out of the thirty
shillings all right, Osborn. I shall put by every week."

"Then," Osborn replied in the same _sotto voce_, "if you won't
spend more for your baby, you darling, you'll be taken out to dinner,
because I love you so; and you're to have a good time and be happy.
I'm to keep you cheerful."

They chose one of the smallest West End restaurants, where they spent
what Marie called a dream of an evening. Her languors evaporated in
that subtle air, her eyes brightened, her cheeks glowed; she could
face right into the teeth of the coming storm, and do no more than
laugh at it. How good it was to be alive, and how alive she was! She
had two lives. She was that most vital of all creatures, the expectant
mother. She felt vaguely as if God had granted to her a great and new
power.

The next morning the sensation of power had vanished. She was only a
tired and nervous girl with a nasty feeling of nausea on her tongue.
Once more Osborn brought her tea, and she sipped it leaning back on
her pillow; as she stretched out an arm for it she caught sight of her
face in the glass and sank back again. It was so tired and fretted,
and the freshness of her skin seemed lost. How she wished she need not
get up! She dreaded the day with its small and insistent exactions.

She was conscious of a fierce irritation with petty things.

Osborn could hardly eat breakfast himself when he saw how sick and
so