aid Susie, sadly. She was humbled by the rebuff she had
just received. "I only wish I had."

Aggie looked up from her work with a remorseful tenderness in her tired
eyes. She was sorry for poor Susie, who had lost her only one.

But Susie had already regretted her momentary weakness, and her pride was
up. She was a primitive woman, and had always feared lest reproach should
lie upon her among the mothers of many children. Besides, she had never
forgotten that her John had loved Aggie first. Aggie, with her seven
children, should not set her down as a woman slighted by her husband.

"I haven't had the strength for it," said she; and Aggie winced. "The
doctor told John I mustn't have more than the one. And I haven't."

Poor Aggie hardened her face before Susie's eyes, for she felt that they
were spying out and judging her. And Susie, seeing that set look,
remembered how badly Aggie had once behaved to her John. Therefore she was
tempted to extol him.

"But then," said she, magnificently, "I have my husband." (As if Aggie
hadn't hers!) "Nobody knows what John is but me. Do you know, there hasn't
been one unkind word passed between us, nor one cross look, ever since he
married me eight years ago."

"There are very few who can say that." Aggie tried to throw a ring of
robust congratulation into her flat tones.

"Very few. But there's no one like him."

"No one like you, either, I should say."

"Well, for him there isn't. He's never had eyes for any one but
me--never."

Aggie cast down her eyes demurely at that. She had no desire to hurt Susie
by reminding her of the facts. But Susie, being sensitive on the subject,
had provided for all that.

"Of course, dear, I know, just at first, he thought of you. A fancy. He
told me all about it; and how you wouldn't have him, _he_ said. He said he
didn't think you thought him gentle enough. That shows how much you knew
about him, my dear."

"I should always have supposed," said Aggie, coldly, "he would be gentle
to any one he cared for."

She knew, and Susie knew, she had supposed the very opposite; but she
wished Susie to understand that John had been rejected with full
realization of his virtues, because, good as he was, somebody else was
still better. So that there might be no suspicion of regret.

"Gentle? Why, Aggie, if that was what you wanted, he's as gentle as a
woman. Gentler--there aren't many women, I can tell you, who have the
strength that goes with that."