wisdom and of patience and of pain.

"My dear, you don't know what it is to have had six children."

"Oh, don't I? I know enough not to want any more of them."

"Well--then--" said Aggie.

But Arthur's eyes evaded her imploring and pathetic gaze. He turned the
subject back to Mrs. Davidson--a clumsy shift.

"Anyhow, it doesn't take much strength to call on Mrs. Davidson, does it?"

"It's no good. I can't think of anything to say to her."

"Oh, come, she isn't difficult to get on with."

"No, but I am. I don't know why it is I always feel so stupid now."

"That," said Arthur, "is because you haven't kept it up."

"I haven't had the time," she wailed.

"Time? Oh, rubbish, you should make time. It doesn't do to let things go
like that. Think of the children."

"It's because I'm always thinking of them."

They rose from their poor repast. (Coffee and mutton-chops had vanished
from the board, and another period of cocoa had set in.) He picked up her
shawl, that had dropped again, and placed it about her shoulders, and they
dragged themselves mournfully back into their sitting-room. She took up
her place on the sofa. He dropped into the arm-chair, where he sat
motionless, looking dully at the fire. His wife watched him with her
faded, tender eyes.

"Arthur," she said, suddenly, "it's the first meeting of the Society
to-night. Did you forget?" They had never admitted, to themselves or to
each other, that they had given it up.

"Yes," said Arthur, peevishly, "of course I forgot. How on earth did you
expect me to remember?"

"I think you ought to go, dear, sometimes. You never went all last
winter."

"I know."

"Isn't it a pity not to try--a little--just to keep it up? If it's only
for the children's sake."

"My dear Aggie, it's for the children's sake--and yours--that I fag my
brain out, as it is. When you've been as hard at it as I've been, all day,
you don't feel so very like turning out again--not for that sort of
intellectual game. You say you feel stupid in the afternoon. What do you
suppose I feel like in the evening?"

His accents cut Aggie to the heart.

"Oh, my dear, I know. I only thought it might do you good, sometimes, to
get a change--if it's only from me and my stupidity."

"If there's one thing I hate more than another," said Arthur, "it is a
change."

She knew it. That had been her consolation. Arthur was not as the race of
dreamers to which he once seemed to have belonged. There w