e joy that she had always felt awaited her in New York was Martie's
now! She told Wallace that she had KNOWN that New York meant success.
She went to his rehearsals, feeling herself a proud part of the whole
enterprise, keenly appreciative of the theatre atmosphere. When he went
away with his company in late August, Martie saw him off cheerfully,
moved to a smaller room, and began to plan for his return, and for the
baby. She was in love with life--she wrote Sally.

"You're lucky our climate don't affect you no more than it does,"
observed Mrs. Curley comfortably. "I suffer considerable from the heat,
myself; but then, to tell you the honest truth, I'm fleshy."

"I like it!" Martie answered buoyantly. "The thunder storms are
delicious! Why, at home the gardens are as dry as bones, now, and look
at Central Park--as green as ever. And I love the hurdy-gurdies and the
awnings and the elevated trains and the street markets!"

"I like the city," said the old woman, with a New Yorker's approval of
this view. "My daughter wants me to go down and open a house in Asbury;
she has a little summer place there, with a garage and all. But I tell
her there's almost nobody in the house now, and we get a good draf'
through the rooms. It's not so bad!"

"It's better for me," said the young wife, "because of the uncertainty
of Mr. Bannister's plans."

"They're all uncertain--men," submitted Mrs. Curley thoughtfully. "That
is, the nice ones are," she added. "You show me a man whose wife isn't
always worrying about him and I'll show you a fool!"

"Which was Mr. Curley?" Martie asked, twinkling. For she and his relict
were the only women in the big boarding-house during the hot months,
and they had become intimate.

"Curley," said his widow solemnly, "was one of God's own. A better
father seven children never had, nor a better neighbour any man! He'd
be at his place in church on a Sunday be the weather what it might, and
that strong in his opinions that the boys would ask him this and that
like the priest himself! I'm not saying, mind you, that he wouldn't
take a drop too much, now and then, and act very harshly when the drink
was on him, but he'd come out of it like a little child----"

She fell into a reverie, repeating dreamily to herself the words
"a--little--child----" and Martie, dreaming, too, was silent.

The two women were in one of the cool back bedrooms. For hot still
blocks all about the houses were just the same; some c