rry she was; he watched her efforts to eat a piece of dry toast and
tried to comfort.

"When I saw the doctor," he said, "he told me this feeling of yours
would only last two or three months."

"'Only'!" said Marie despairingly, "'only'!" She recalled Julia to him
faintly, when she exclaimed: "I wonder how you men would like to feel
sick and faint and ragged-out for 'only' three months!"

He hung his head.

"Well, we can't help it," he pleaded, half guiltily.

"I know," she whispered, with a sob in her throat, "but don't say
'only.'"

Osborn left home somewhat earlier than usual that morning. That sort
of half-guilty feeling made him glad to go. It wasn't his fault, was
it, that Nature had matters thus arranged? He agreed with his wife
that it was bad management, but he couldn't help it. He was glad that,
as he left, she asked him to do something for her; glad that he was
able to do it.

When he had gone, Marie did a very wise thing, though he would have
thought it a foolish one. She lay down and cried. She cried till she
could cry no longer. She lay there some while after her tears had
ceased, as if their fount had dried, and she adapted her outlook, as
well as she was able, to these unforeseen, surprising and dismaying
conditions.

She was the victim of the pretty and glossy storybook, the sentimental
play, and of a light education. None of these things had prepared her
for the realities she was undergoing; the story-book ended glossily
with the marriage and happy expectations of a wonder-struck young
couple. In book and play the heavenly child simply happened; no one
felt miserably sick, ferociously irritable, or despairingly weary
because of its coming. There had been no part of her education which
had warned her of natural contingencies. She now saw that for her
blessing she must pay, and pay heavily maybe, with her body.

She argued with herself a little fractiously on the escape of men.
They had children without suffering; marriage without tears. Was it
fair? Oh, was it in any sense equal or fair?

* * * * *

The little clock struck 6.30. Osborn was due, and dinner not yet
preparing. Marie ran to the kitchen. "Goodness!" she said to herself,
"it's endless! Life's nothing but getting meals. Is eating worth
while?" She hurried around the flat till she was tired again, but
hasten as she might, Osborn arrived before the cooking was done.

She was changing her gown when h