sively. She was willing to yield the glory of
the idea to him.

"Well," he said, "I don't know how we're going to manage it. One thing I
do know--there mustn't be any more of them. I can't afford it."

He had said that before so often that Aggie had felt inclined to tell him
that she couldn't afford it, either. But to-night she was silent, for he
didn't know she knew. And as she saw that he (who did know) was trying to
spare her, she blessed him in her heart.

If he did not tell her everything that the doctor had said, he told her
that Willie was all right. Willie had been declared to be a child of
powerful health. They weren't to coddle him. As if any one _had_ coddled
him! Poor Aggie only wished she had the time.

But now that her release had come, she would have time, and strength, too,
for many things that she had had to leave undone. She would get nearer to
her children, and to her husband, too. Even at four o'clock in the
morning, Aggie had joy in spite of her mortal weariness, as she rocked the
sleepless baby on the sad breast that had never suckled him. She told the
baby all about it, because she couldn't keep it in.

"My beauty," she murmured, "he will always be my baby. He sha'n't have any
little brothers or sisters, never any more. There--there--there, did
they--? Hsh-sh-sh, my sweet pet, my lamb. My little king--he shall never
be dethroned. Hush, hush, my treasure, or he'll wake his poor Daddy, he
will."

In another room, on his sleepless pillow, the baby's father turned and
groaned.

All the next day, and the next, Aggie went about with a light step, and
with eyes that brightened like a bride's, because of the spring of new
love in her heart.

It came over her now how right Arthur had been, how she ought to have kept
it up, and how fearfully she had let it go.

Not only the lectures--what did they matter?--but her reading, her music,
everything, all the little arts and refinements by which she had once
captured Arthur's heart--"Things," she said, "that made all the difference
to Arthur." How forbearing and constant he had been!

That evening she dressed her hair and put flowers on the supper-table.
Arthur opened his eyes at the unusual appearance, but said nothing. She
could see that he was cross about something--something that had occurred
in the office, probably. She had never grudged him his outbursts of
irritability. It was his only dissipation. Aggie had always congratulated
herself on bein