little one had ever come to
Mary and himself.

"But," he added with an air of assumed cheerfulness, "as Mary does not
like children at all, it is perhaps for the best that none has ever come
to us."

I now understood why Mr. Blossom was so cautious in his attentions to our
baby; he was fearful of being observed by his wife; he felt that it was
his duty to humor her in her disinclination to children. I pitied the
dear old gentleman, and for the same reason conceived a violent dislike
for Mrs. Blossom.

But my wife Cordelia told me something one day that set my heart to
aching for both the two old people.

"A sweet-looking old lady passed the house this afternoon," said
Cordelia, "and took notice of baby asleep in my arms on the porch. She
stopped and asked me all about her and presently she kissed her, and then
I saw that she was crying softly to herself. I asked her if she had ever
lost a little girl, and she said no. 'I have always been childless,'
said the sweet old lady. 'In all the years of my wifehood I have
besought but one blessing of heaven--the joy of maternity. My prayers
are unanswered, and it is perhaps better so.' She told me then that her
husband did not care for children; she could hardly reconcile his
professed antipathy to them with his warm, gentle, and loyal nature; but
it was well, if he did not want children, that none had come."

"What was the old lady's name?" I asked.

"Mrs. Blossom," said my wife Cordelia.

I whistled softly to myself. Then I told Cordelia of my experience with
Mr. Blossom, and we wondered where and when and how this pathetic comedy
of cross-purposes would end. We talked the matter over many a time after
that, and we agreed that it would be hard to find an instance of
deception more touching than that which we had met with in the daily life
of Mr. and Mrs. Blossom. Meanwhile the two old people became more and
more attached to our precious baby. Every morning brought Mr. Blossom
down the street with a smile and a caress and a tender word for the
little one, that toddled to meet him and overwhelm him with her innocent
prattle. Every afternoon found the sweet-looking old lady in front of
our house, fondling our child, and feeding her starving maternal instinct
upon the little one's caresses. Each one--the old gentleman and the old
lady--each one confessed by action and by word to an overwhelming love
for children, yet between them stood that pitiless lie, conce