d absently. She was watching the opal
globes sway. "Aunt Edith says before she was married she'd have gone
South with a trained nurse after such an experience, but now she has
to save the nurse for measles, she s'poses, so she just lies down
after lunch."

The Duchess moved restlessly half out of the griffin chair, but sank
back again.

"And you have a trained nurse all the time," Caroline mused,
stroking the glistering velvet, "isn't that funny? Just so in case
you _might_ be sick...." The sunlight peeped and winked on the gold
book-edges.

"It amounts to that," the Duchess said, adding very low, "but she is
not likely to be needed for measles."

"No," Caroline assented, "you and cousin Richard are pretty old for
measles. It's children that have 'em, mostly. I never did, yet. But
you don't seem to ever have any children. And such a big house, too!
And you're very fond of children, aren't you? It seems so queer that
when you like them you can't manage to have any. And people that
don't care about them have them all the time. It was only Christmas
time that Norah Mahoney--she does the extra washing in the
summer--had another. That makes seven. It's a boy. Joseph Michael,
he's named, partly after Uncle Joe. Norah says there don't seem to
be any end to your troubles, once you're married to a man."

The Duchess turned aside her head, but Caroline knew from the corner
of her mouth that her eyes were full of tears. She stroked the hands
that clenched the griffin's crest.

"Never mind," she urged, "maybe you'll have some. Most everybody has
just one, anyway."

The Duchess shook her head mutely; a large round tear dropped on
the griffin.

"Well, then," said Caroline briskly, "why don't you adopt one? The
Weavers did, and she was quite a nice girl; I used to play with her.
She sucked her thumb, though. But prob'ly they don't, all of them."

"I wouldn't mind, if she did," the Duchess declared. Already she
spoke more brightly. "I wanted to adopt one--one could take it when
it was very little. But Richard won't hear of it."

"Not a bit?" Caroline looked worried; she knew Richard.

"Not a bit," the Duchess repeated, "that is, he says he is willing
under certain conditions, but they are simply impossible. Nobody
could find such a child."

"There are lots of 'em in the Catholic Foundling," said Caroline
thoughtfully, "all kinds. Aunt Edith went there to sing for them and
she took Miss Honey and me. They're all dressed