hese feverish little mites in her nursery. She tried to
think she had been, she tried to think that all children were such
little distressed lumps of embittered individuality, and she did what
she could to overcome the queer feeling that this particular clutch of
offspring had been foisted upon her and weren't at all the children she
could now imagine and desire,--gentle children, sweet-spirited
children....

Sec.4

Susan Burnet arrived in a gusty mood and brought new matter for Lady
Harman's ever broadening consideration of the wifely position. Susan,
led by a newspaper placard, had discovered Sir Isaac's relations to the
International Bread and Cake Stores.

"At first I thought I wouldn't come," said Susan. "I really did. I
couldn't hardly believe it. And then I thought, 'it isn't _her_. It
can't be _her_!' But I'd never have dreamt before that I could have been
brought to set foot in the house of the man who drove poor father to
ruin and despair.... You've been so kind to me...."

Susan's simple right-down mind stopped for a moment with something very
like a sob, baffled by the contradictions of the situation.

"So I came," she said, with a forced bright smile.

"I'm glad you came," said Lady Harman. "I wanted to see you. And you
know, Susan, I know very little--very little indeed--of Sir Isaac's
business."

"I quite believe it, my lady. I've never for one moment thought
_you_----I don't know how to say it, my lady."

"And indeed I'm not," said Lady Harman, taking it as said.

"I knew you weren't," said Susan, relieved to be so understood.

And the two women looked perplexedly at one another over the neglected
curtains Susan had come to "see to," and shyness just snatched back Lady
Harman from her impulse to give Susan a sisterly kiss. Nevertheless
Susan who was full of wise intuitions felt that kiss that was never
given, and in the remote world of unacted deeds returned it with
effusion.

"But it's hard," said Susan, "to find one's own second sister mixed up
in a strike, and that's what it's come to last week. They've struck, all
the International waitresses have struck, and last night in Piccadilly
they were standing on the kerb and picketing and her among them. With a
crowd cheering.... And me ready to give my right hand to keep that girl
respectable!"

And with a volubility that was at once tumultuous and effective, Susan
sketched in the broad outlines of the crisis that threatened the
dividends