onstance's room, leaving the baby with Steve.

"Constance," said Nannie, stepping up to the bedside, "you are going
to get well, aren't you?"

"Why, yes, of course," said Constance.

"I want to tell you, you must. I think it would be wicked to leave the
little baby in the world without a mother. No one would ever love her
and no one would teach her to do things and how to be good, and she
would be so lonely, and she wouldn't know how to come near people and
say anything, no matter if her heart was bursting."

And Nannie sank by the bed and wept as a woman does sometimes when
her sobs break their way out and she can't stop them.

A flood seemed to pour upon Constance, and in it she saw the lonely,
yearning, ignorant child-wife as she really was. She also saw how
unjust she herself had been, and pity and remorse laid hold upon her.

"Nannie! dear Nannie--you poor little thing! Come here. I want to tell
you that I love you. I never knew you before and Steve loves you if
only you would let him."

But Nannie was on her feet again. Her words had been spoken, and all
the crudity that had been swept aside for a moment returned in full
force and awkwardness. Without even a glance at Constance she abruptly
left the room, and in a few moments she and Steve were walking
homeward.

XIV

Sarah Maria was gone and baby Chance was thriving. There was bliss
enough for any reasonable man, and Steve waxed almost light of heart.
All this had come about with time, and other things might come, too,
if time were not interfered with. The news of Sarah's rapid transit
had hardly cost Nannie the lifting of an eyebrow. She was so absorbed
in the baby that she could well afford to spare her amiable bovine.

Although it was quite late in the fall, Steve was actually
contemplating the planting of another crop. Now that the main enemy
had withdrawn her horns and heels from the garden, winter seemed a
mere bagatelle in the way of opposition--an obstacle too small for
reckoning.

But, as poets and prose writers have abundantly proven, Ill Fortune
has an ugly habit of coming around a corner with a sudden demoniac
swish when least expected and she certainly did this time. Steve was
out in his garden drinking in the mellow stillness of an Indian summer
twilight, and feeling not really happy perhaps--a man who has a home
only in name can hardly be that--but rested and at peace at that
particular moment