ested upon Virginia and the children. And
since her opinion of her own power to entertain was modest, she fell
back with a sublime confidence on the unrivalled brilliancy and the
infinite variety of the children's prattle. During the spring, as he
grew more and more indifferent and depressed, she arranged that the
children should be with him every instant while he was in the house. She
brought Jenny's high chair to the table in order that the adorable
infant might breakfast with her father; she kept Harry up an hour later
at night so that he might add the gaiety of his innocent mirth to their
otherwise long and silent evenings. Though she would have given anything
to drop into bed as soon as the babies were undressed, she forced
herself to sit up without yawning until Oliver turned out the lights,
bolted the door, and remarked irritably that she ought to have been
asleep hours ago.

"You aren't used to sitting up so late, Virginia; it makes you dark
under the eyes," he said one June night as he came in from the porch
where he had been to look up at the stars.

"But I can't go to bed until you do, darling. I get so worried about
you," she answered.

"Why in heaven's name, should you worry about me? I am all right," he
responded crossly.

She saw her mistake, and with her unvarying sweetness, set out to
rectify it.

"Of course, I know you are--but we have so little time together that I
don't want to miss the evenings."

"So little!" he echoed, not unkindly, but in simple astonishment.

"I mean the children sit up late now, and of course we can't talk while
they are playing in the room."

"Don't you think you might get them to bed earlier? They are becoming
rather a nuisance, aren't they?"

He said it kindly enough, yet tears rushed to her eyes as she looked at
him. It was impossible for her to conceive of any mood in which the
children would become "rather a nuisance" to her, and the words hurt her
more than he was ever to know. It seemed the last straw that she could
not bear, said her heart as she turned away from him. She had borne the
extra work without a complaint; she had pinched and scraped, if not
happily, at least with a smile; she had sat up while her limbs ached
with fatigue and the longing to be in bed--and all these things were as
nothing to the tragic confession that the children had become "rather a
nuisance." Of the many trials she had had to endure, this, she told
herself, was the bitterest.