n by
congratulating herself on her perspicacity.

"I knew it," she said. "When I saw as how you were so and so, I said to
Alma as I was sure you were that way. 'Impossible,' said Alma, but it's
us married women to know, isn't it?"

After that, and some homely counsel out of her own experience--to take
my breakfast in bed in future, avoiding tea, &c.,--she told me how
fortunate I was to have Alma in the house at such a moment.

"The doctor says you're to be kept bright and cheerful, and she's such a
happy heart, is Alma. So crazy about you too! You wouldn't believe it,
but she's actually talking of staying with you until the December
sailing, at all events."

The prospect of having Alma two months longer, to probe my secret soul
as with a red-hot iron, seemed enough to destroy me, but my martyrdom
had only begun.

Next day, Aunt Bridget came, and the bright glitter of the usually cold
grey eyes behind her gold-rimmed spectacles told me at a glance that her
visit was not an unselfish one.

"There now," she said, "you've got to thank me for this. Didn't I give
you good advice when I told you to be a little blind? It's the only way
with husbands. When Conrad came home with the news I said, 'Betsy, I
must get away to the poor girl straight.' To be sure I had enough on my
hands already, but I couldn't leave you to strangers, could I?"

Hearing no response to this question, Aunt Bridget went on to say that
what was coming would be a bond between me and my husband.

"It always is. It was in my case, anyway. The old colonel didn't behave
very well after our marriage, and times and times I was telling myself I
had made a rue bargain; but when Betsy came I thought, 'I might have
done better, but I might have done worse, and he's the father of my
offspring, anyway.'"

Hearing no response to this either, Aunt Bridget went on to talk of Alma
and her mother. Was not this the woman I suspected with my husband--the
young one with the big eyes and "the quality toss with her?" Then why
did I have a person like that about the house?

"If you need bright and cheerful company, what's amiss with your aunt
and your first cousin? Some people are selfish, but I thank the saints I
don't know what selfishness is. I'm willing to do for you what I did for
your poor mother, and _I_ can't say more than that, can I?"

I must have made some kind of response, for Aunt Bridget went on to say
it might be a sacrifice, but then she wouldn't be s