s worth having."

Desire smiled. But the words lingered. She had never valued her youth.
She had been impatient of it. And now to be told that it was all there
was worth having! It was the creed of selfishness. And yet--had life
already given her one of her greatest treasures and had she come near
to missing the meaning of the gift?

At breakfast she observed her husband's chin so narrowly that he became
uneasy, wondering if he had forgotten to shave. She looked at John's
chin, too, with reflective eyes. Undoubtedly it was much inferior.

The train had conquered the mountains now and was plunging down upon
their farther side. Soon they were in the foot-hills and then nothing
but a flashing streak across an endless, endless tableland of wheat.
Desire, who had never seen the prairie, smiled whimsically.

"It is like coming from the world's cathedral to the world's
breakfast-table!" said she.

Aunt Caroline snorted. For her part, she said, she found train
breakfasts much the same anywhere except near the Great Lakes, where
one might expect better fish.

It grew very hot. The effortless speed of the train rolled up the
blazing miles and threw them behind, league on league. The sun set and
rose on a level sky. The babies of the rancher's wife grew tired and
sticky. They were almost too much for their equally tired mother, so
half of them sat on Desire's lap most of the time. Desire's half seemed
to bounce a great deal and gave bubbly kisses, but the rings around its
fat wrist and the pink dimples in its fingers were well worth while
keeping clean and cool just to look at. It was true, as Desire reminded
herself, that she did not care for children, but anyone might find a
round, fat one with cooey laughs a pleasant thing to play with! She did
it mostly when Benis was in the smoker with John.

At Winnipeg the honeymoon couple left them and the old lady from
Golden, much to her disgust, was also compelled to stay over for a day
because her middle-aged daughter was train-sick. Other and less
interesting faces took their places.

Desire watched them hopefully but the only one who seemed appealing was
a sturdy prairie school teacher going "home." Desire liked the school
teacher. She was so solid, so sure of herself, so wrapped up in and
satisfied with something which she called "education." She asked Desire
where she had been educated. Desire did not seem to know. "Just
anywhere," she said, "when father felt like it and h