is Lady Alicia herself," he finally explained.

"What can she do?"

"She may cause complications."

"What kind of complications?"

"I can't tell until I've seen her," was Dinky-Dunk's none too definite
reply.

"Then we needn't cross that bridge until we come to it," I announced
as I sat watching Dinky-Dunk pack the bowl of his pipe and strike a
match. It seemed a trivial enough movement. Yet it was monumental in
its homeliness. It was poignant with a power to transport me back to
earlier and happier days, to the days when one never thought of
feathering the nest of existence with the illusions of old age. A
vague loneliness ate at my heart, the same as a rat eats at a cellar
beam.

I crossed over to my husband's side and stood with one hand on his
shoulder as he sat there smoking. I waited for him to reach out for my
other hand. But the burden of his troubles seemed too heavy to let him
remember. He smoked morosely on. He sat in a sort of self-immuring
torpor, staring out over what he still regarded as the wreck of his
career. So I stooped down and helped myself to a very smoky kiss
before I went off up-stairs to bed. For the children, I knew, would
have me awake early enough--and nursing mothers needs must sleep!

_Thursday the Second_

I have won my point. Dinky-Dunk has succumbed. The migration is under
way. The great trek has begun. In plain English, we're moving.

I rather hate to think about it. We seem so like the Children of Israel
bundled out of a Promised Land, or old Adam and Eve turned out of the
Garden with their little Cains and Abels. "We're up against it,
Gee-Gee," as Dinky-Dunk grimly observed. I could see that we were,
without his telling me. But I refused to acknowledge it, even to
myself. And it wasn't the first occasion. This time, thank heaven, I
can at least face it with fortitude, if not with relish. I don't like
poverty. And I don't intend to like it. And I'm not such a hypocrite as
to make a pretense of liking it. But I do intend to show my Dinky-Dunk
that I'm something more than a household ornament, just as I intend to
show myself that I can be something more than a breeder of children. I
have given my three "hostages to fortune"--and during the last few days
when we've been living, like the infant Moses, in a series of rushes, I
have awakened to the fact that they are indeed hostages. For the little
tikes, no matter how you maneuver, still demand a