h, inevitable
expense approaching. Especial concessions must be made to Helma, should
Helma really stay; the whole little household was like a ship that
shortens sail, and makes all snug against a storm. As a further
complication, business matters began to go badly for Jim. Salaries were
cut, new rules made, and an unpopular manager installed at the office.
Anne struggled bravely to hide her mental and physical discomfort from
Jim. Jim, cut to the heart to have to add anything to her care just
now, touched her with a thousand little tendernesses; a joke over the
burned pudding, a little name she had not heard since honeymoon days, a
hundred barefoot expeditions about the bedroom in the dark, when Jinny
awoke crying in the night, or Diego could not sleep because he was so
"firsty." Tender and intimate days these, but the strain of them told
on both husband and wife.

Things were at this point on the particular dark afternoon that found
Anne with the two children at the window. All three were still staring
out into the early dusk when Helma came in from the kitchen with an
armful of damp little garments:

"Ef aye sprad dese hare, dey be dray en no tayme?" suggested Helma.

"Oh, yes! Spread them here by all means; then you can get a good start
with your ironing to-morrow!" Anne agreed, rousing herself from her
revery. "Put them all around the fire. And I MUST straighten this
room!" she said, half to herself; "it's getting on to five!"

Followed by the stumbling children, she went briskly about the room,
reducing it to order with a practised hand. Toys were piled in a large
basket, scraps tossed into the fire, sewing materials gathered together
and put out of sight, the rugs laid smoothly, the window-shades drawn.
Anne "brushed up" the floor, pushed chairs against the wall, put a
shovelful of coals on the fire, and finally took her rocker at the
hearth, and sat with Virginia in her arms, and Diego beside her, while
two silver bowls of bread and milk were finished to the last drop.

"There!" said she, pleasantly warmed by these exertions, "now for
nighties! And Daddy can come as soon as he likes."

But Virginia was fretful and sleepy now, and did not want to be put
down. So Diego manfully departed kitchenward with the empty bowls, and
Anne, baby, rocker, and all, hitched her way across the room to the old
chest of drawers by the hall door, and managed to secure the small
sleeping garments with the little daughter still