tlessly affectionate and blundering.

"You are a darling, Ray," she laughed, after a specially clumsy service,
"but you were never born with a faculty for nursing, like Captain
Dalton's. He is so capable; he never spills my mixture down my neck
before I can drink it; nor does he pour out over-doses, and empty the
surplus on the drugget!"

"'Comparisons are odorous,'" he returned, looking hurt.

"The tent is, if you like. It smells like a chemist's shop! Your proper
place and function are in the court, and sentencing criminals to
punishment."

"You want to get rid of me so that you may have the doctor all to
yourself! I wonder what you find in him at all. He fairly chokes one
off."

"I told you he was either an automaton or an angel; I find he is both,
only he would like us to think him a bad angel."

"A man knows himself best. So you want to desert me tomorrow?" he cried
reproachfully.

"Dear old thing!--you wouldn't have me stay if you knew that I should be
miserable?" she coaxed, drawing down his face to be kissed.

"Miserable with the husband who adores you?"

"If you love me so much, you should be unselfish and think more of
Baby."

"Must Baby always count above his Daddy?"

"Naturally he must be considered more, while he is so young and
delicate."

"Where then do I come in?"

"You mustn't be jealous of your own child!" she cried reproachfully.
"Think of his helplessness, his need of me!--Of course you need me,
too," she said putting her palm over his mouth to stifle his eloquence
on the subject of a husband's rights, "but then, there's a difference.
You can manage without me, while he must not. A babe is a sacred trust
to its mother."

"And when he grows older and is impressionable, there will be a mother's
_moral duty towards his soul_ to separate us. You and he at home, and I
out here, alone! I know the jargon, having watched such comedies for
years. Now it has come home to me. One hears that a child is a blessing
from God.... I believe it is a blessing very much in disguise, for I see
only the disguise at present."

"Why look so far ahead?" laughed Joyce, determined to mend his humour.
"By the time he is old enough to become a 'moral' responsibility, you
will probably be only too glad to get rid of me. I am such a worry as a
wife."

"I wonder!" he ejaculated ruefully.

Joyce reminded him of the many week-ends he could spend at the bungalow,
when they would contrive to have very happy time