was more than
capable, evinced no enthusiasm for the project. She had helped him; he
had never forgotten nor disparaged that. But he did not need or want
her at the Star office now, and he did need and want her in his home.

"You have enough to do as it is--with Eric and the house," he said.

"But, Ted, I _haven't_ enough to do," she insisted. "There's nothing
for me really to do in the house. I overlook everything, but that
doesn't occupy all my time. And with Eric at school--don't you see, my
dear, that it's something to do I need? Don't you see how--how
restless I am?"

"We ought to have more children!" he exclaimed wistfully.

"Yes," she agreed, "yes, we ought to have more children. But if they
do not come--?" And she stared before her, her hands lying empty and
listless in her lap. "If they do not come--?" she repeated presently.
And now she turned her brooding eyes to his face and a purpose gathered
and concentrated in them. "I wonder if you could understand--" she
began.

But he cut into the sentence: "I must hurry back to the office. I take
too much time for lunch. Don't get discontented, little girl. I'll
take you down to Louisville for the horse show next week. We'll have a
bully spree. That's what you need." And he went off whistling
blithely, sure that he had solved the problem of Sheila's "moods"--as
he always called any symptom of depression in her.

Sheila watched him go, smiling. "Of course he wouldn't have
understood," she said to herself. "And how I would have bothered him
if I'd tried to analyze myself for him--poor dear!" But the
reflection, amused, yet wholly tender, did not end her unrest, her
perplexity.

After a futile attempt to interest herself in duties about the house,
she set out for a walk, hoping to capture something of the outdoor
peace. It was October, always an exhilarating month in Kentucky, with
its crisp air and its flaming banners of red and gold, and soon her
blood was stirred and her heart lightened, and she was swinging along
at a brisk pace. She had started in the direction of her grandmother's
house, but suddenly she wheeled about and took to another street.

Never since Eric's illness had her grandmother spoken to her of her
writing, and she had been glad of the silence. It seemed to her that
if they talked at all, they who had been so close, so much would have
to be said; she could not conceive of a reserve in anything which she
undertook to d