at desire was gone!

"You'd better not talk any more now, Lois; you look tired. It's time for
you to take a little rest. I'll see to the children. I hope baby will
stay asleep. Let me pull this coverlet over you. Shall I pull down the
shades?"

"No, I'd rather have the light. Please hand me that book over there on
the stand," said Lois, holding out her hand for the big, old-fashioned
brown volume that Dosia brought to her.

"You oughtn't to read; you ought to go to sleep," said Dosia, with
tender severity.

"I'm not going to read," returned Lois pacifically. Her hand closed over
the book, she smiled, and Dosia closed the door. Lois turned to the
sleeping child with a peculiar delight in being quite alone with
him--alone with him, to think.

The book was a novel of some forty years ago, called, as the title-page
proclaimed, "A Woman's Kingdom," and written by Dinah Maria Mulock. A
neighbor had brought it in to Lois during the first month of her
convalescence. In all the time she had had it, she had never read any
further than that title-page.

There is often more in the birth of a child than the coming of another
son or daughter into the world. Between those forces of life and death a
woman may also get her chance to be born anew, made over again,
spiritually as well as physically. In those long, restful hours
afterward, when suspense is over and pain is over, and there is a
freedom from household cares, and one is looked upon with renewed
tenderness, the thoughts may flow over long, long ways. To face danger
bravely in itself gives strength for the clearer vision; and a
peculiarly loved child unlocks with its tiny hands springs unknown
before.

Lois, though she had been a mother twice before, had never felt toward
either of the other children at all as she did now toward this little
boy. She could not bear to be parted from him. Somehow that terrible
corrosive selfishness had been blessedly taken away from her--for a
little while only? She only felt at first that she must not think of
those horrible depths, for fear of slipping back into the pit again;
even to think of the slimy powers of darkness gave them a fresh hold on
one. She put off her return to that soul-embracing egotism. It was sweet
to lie there and meet the tender gentleness of her husband's gaze when
he came home, and to talk to him about the baby as a child might talk
about a new toy, though she could not but begin to perceive that she was
as fa