mmunings with what Kathryn glibly termed the Great All-Mind.

Between the doctor and the increasing demands of parish work, Scott
Brenton had very little time to spend at home. He would have mourned
for this the more acutely, had Kathryn given any evidence of mourning
on her side. Kathryn, however, was quite too busy sewing on
preposterously small and preposterously frilly garments, quite too busy
receiving pre-congratulatory calls from the women of the parish, to
have any leisure left to bestow upon her husband. They met at meals;
now and then they had an evening hour together, an hour when the chain
of talk sagged heavily, broke, and fell into a sea of silence. Then
either Kathryn wiped her eyes with ostentatious secrecy, arose and went
away to bed; or else Brenton, after a furtive glance or two in the
direction of her head, bent down above her sewing, stole out of the
room as noiselessly as he was able and betook himself to the study
where, often and often, the light burned almost till dawn.

At the table, it was rather better. They could offer each other things
to eat, and talk about the vagaries of the present cook who, under the
best of circumstances, was bound to be the past cook within a week or
so. Scott could ask Kathryn if she had seen the morning paper; Kathryn
could ask Scott if he knew old Mrs. Swan was likely to die, before the
day was at an end.

Of any real talk about their personal relations to each other, of any
but the most trivial reference to the great responsibility which now
loomed close ahead of them: of this, there was nothing, nothing at all.
Brenton would have loved to talk about it, to discuss it with his wife
in perfect frankness, to show out to her in some small measure the
overwhelming happiness that the outlook brought him, the wonderful and
awful increase of personal responsibility. It would have given him
untold pleasure to have gathered his wife into his arms, tight, tight,
and held her there while, cheek pressed to cheek, they talked about the
little stranger coming to their home, about the way they best could
welcome him, and make him happy, and bring out all the best in him
until his tiny person should become a hallowing influence within the
home, a strengthening bond between them, man and wife.

Just once he had tried it, never afterwards. Kathryn had laughed
self-consciously, had bade him _Sh-h-h-h_! Then she had given him
a pecking sort of kiss, and had wriggled out of his ar