alk to!"

"It's well enough," he said. He was standing with his back to her, his
clenched hands in his pockets, staring out of the window. His very
attitude, the stubbornness of his shoulders, showed his determination
not to go to housekeeping.

"What _is_ the matter, Maurice?" she said, her voice trembling. "You are
not happy! Oh, what _can_ I do?" she said, despairingly.

"I am as happy as I deserve to be," he said, without turning his head.

She came and stood beside him, resting her cheek on his shoulder. "Oh,"
she said, passionately, "if I only had a child! You are disappointed
because we have no--"

His recoil was so sharp that she could not finish her sentence, but
clutched at his arm to steady herself; before she could reproach him for
his abruptness he had caught up his hat and left the room. She stood
there quivering. "He _would_ be happier and love me more, if we had a
child!" she said again. She thought of the joy with which, when they
first went to housekeeping, she had bought that foolish, pretty nursery
paper--and again the old disappointment ached under her breastbone.
Tears were just ready to overflow; but there was a knock at the door and
old Mrs. O'Brien came in with her basket of laundry; she gave her
beloved Miss Eleanor a keen look "It's worried you are, my dear? It
ain't the wash, is it?"

Eleanor tried to laugh, but the laugh ended in a sob. "No. It's--it's
only--" Then she said something in a whisper.

"No baby? Bless you, _he_ don't want no babies! What would a handsome
young man like him be wanting a baby for? No! And it would take your
good looks, my dear. Keep handsome, Miss Eleanor, and you needn't worry
about _babies_! And say, Miss Eleanor, never let on to him if you see
him give a look at any of his lady friends. I'm old, my dear, but I
noticed, with all my husbands--and I've had three--that if you tell'em
you see'em lookin' at other ladies, _they'll look again_!--just to spite
you. Don't notice'em, and they'll not do it. Men is children."

Eleanor, laughing in spite of her pain, said Mr. Curtis didn't "look at
other ladies; but--but," she said, wistfully, "I hope I'll have a baby."
Then she wiped her eyes, hugged old O'Brien, and promised to "quit
worrying." But she didn't "quit," for Maurice's face did not lighten.

Henry Houghton, too, saw the aging heaviness of the young face when,
having received the report of that interview with Lily, he came down to
Mercer to go over the