s artistic, and--and I shan't let baby
destroy it."

Babcock glanced from one gift to the other quizzically. Then by way of
disposing of the subject he seized his daughter in his arms and dandling
her toward the ceiling cried, "If it's artistic things we must have,
this is the most artistic thing which I know of in the wide world.
Aren't you, little sugar-plum?"

Mrs. Farley, with motherly distrust of man, apprehensively followed with
her eyes and arms the gyrations of rise and fall; but Selma, though she
saw, pursued the current of her own thought which prompted her to
examine her wedding-ring. She was thinking that, compared with Mrs.
Taylor's, it was a cart wheel--a clumsy, conspicuous band of metal,
instead of a delicate hoop. She wondered if Lewis would object to
exchange it for another.

With the return of her strength, Selma took up again eagerly the tenor
of her former life, aiding and abetting Mrs. Earle in the development of
the Institute. The president was absorbed in enlarging its scope by the
enrollment of more members, and the establishment of classes in a
variety of topics--such as literature, science, philosophy, current
events, history, art, and political economy. She aimed to construct a
club which should be social and educational in the broadest sense by
mutual co-operation and energy. Selma, in her eagerness to make the most
of the opportunities for culture offered, committed herself to two of
the new topic classes--"Italian and Grecian Art," and "The Governments
of Civilization," and as a consequence found some difficulty in
accommodating her baby's nursing hours to these engagements. It was
indeed a relief to her when the doctor presently pronounced the supply
of her breast-milk inadequate. She was able to assuage Lewis' regret
that Muriel should be brought up by hand with the information that a
large percentage of Benham and American mothers were similarly barren
and that bottle babies were exceedingly healthy. She had gleaned the
first fact from the physician, the second from Mrs. Earle, and her own
conclusion on the subject was that a lack of milk was an indication of
feminine evolution from the status of the brute creation, a sign of
spiritual as opposed to animal quality. Selma found Mrs. Earle
sympathetic on this point, and also practical in her suggestions as to
the rearing of infants by artificial means, recommendations concerning
which were contained in one of her series of papers entit