atter," replied Oliver, yawning.
"As long as you humour him, he'll never outgrow these night terrors."

"But how can you tell whether the fright makes him sick or sickness
brings on the fright? His throat was really red, there's no doubt about
that, but I couldn't see last night that it was at all ulcerated."

"He gives you more trouble than both the other children put together."

"Well, he's a boy, and boys do give one more trouble. But, then, you
have less patience with him, Oliver."

"That's because he's a boy, and I like boys to show some pluck even when
they are babies. Lucy and Jenny never raise these midnight rows whenever
they awake in the dark."

"They are not nearly so sensitive. You don't understand Harry."

"Perhaps I don't, but I can see that you are ruining him."

"Oh, Oliver! How can you say such a cruel thing to me?"

"I didn't mean to be cruel, Jinny, and you know it, but all the same it
makes me positively sick to see you make a slave of yourself over the
children. Why, you look as if you hadn't slept for a week. You are
positively haggard."

"But I have to be up with Harry when he is ill. How in the world could I
help it?"

"You know he kicks up these rows almost every night, and you humour
every one of his whims as if it were the first one. Don't you ever get
tired?"

"Of course I do, but I can't let my child suffer even if it is only from
fear. You haven't any patience, Oliver. Don't you remember the time when
you used to be afraid of things?"

"I was never afraid of the dark in my life. No sensible child is, if he
is brought up properly."

"Do you mean I am not bringing up my children----" Her tears choked her
and she could not finish the sentence.

"I don't mean anything except that you are making an old woman of
yourself before your time. You've let yourself go until you look ten
years older than----"

He checked himself in time, but she understood without his words that he
had started to say, "ten years older than Abby." Yes, Abby did look
young--amazingly young--but, then, what else had she to think of?

She lay down, but she was trembling so violently that she sat up quickly
again in order to recover her self-possession more easily. It seemed to
her that the furious beating of her heart must make him understand how
he had wounded her. It was the first discussion approaching a quarrel
they had had since their marriage, for she, who was so pliable in all
other matters, had di