chafe to express herself through the medium of poetry or
music or the stage, but she puts her whole splendid philosophy into
her nursery--launches sound little bodies and minds that have their
first growth cleanly and purely about her knees. Responsibility,--that's
what these other women say they are afraid of! But it seems to
me there's no responsibility like that of decreeing that young lives
simply shall not be. Why, what good is learning, or elegance of
manner, or painfully acquired fineness of speech, and taste and point
of view, if you are not going to distil it into the growing plants,
the only real hope we have in the world! You know, Miss Paget," his
smile was very sweet, in the half darkness, "there's a higher tribunal
than the social tribunal of this world, after all; and it seems to me
that a woman who stands there, as your mother will, with a forest of
new lives about her, and a record like hers, will--will find she has a
Friend at court!" he finished whimsically.

They were at a lonely corner, and a garden fence offering Margaret
a convenient support, she laid her arms suddenly upon the rosevine
that covered it, and her face upon her arms, and cried as if her
heart was broken.

"Why, why--my dear girl!" the professor said, aghast. He laid his hand
on the shaking shoulders, but Margaret shook it off.

"I'm not what you think I am!" she sobbed out, incoherently. "I'm not
different from other women; I'm just as selfish and bad and mean as
the worst of them! And I'm not worthy to t-tie my m-mother's shoes!"

"Margaret!" John Tenison said unsteadily. And in a flash her drooping
bright head was close to his lips, and both his big arms were about
her. "You know I love you, don't you Margaret?" he said hoarsely, over
and over, with a sort of fierce intensity. "You know that, don't you?
Don't you, Margaret?"

Margaret could not speak. Emotion swept her like a rising tide from
all her familiar moorings; her heart thundered, there was a roaring in
her ears. She was conscious of a wild desire to answer him, to say one
hundredth part of all she felt; but she could only rest, breathless,
against him, her frightened eyes held by the eyes so near, his arms
about her.

"You do, don't you, Margaret?" he said more gently. "You love me,
don't you? Don't you?"

And after a long time, or what seemed a long time, while they stood
motionless in the summer night, with the great branches of the trees
moving a little overh