e
little dining-room (with its screen to conceal the kitchen range)
offered nothing more than homely comfort; and then the servant had to
be disposed of by sending her into the bedroom to take care of Willie.
Privacy, in the strict sense, was impossible, for the servant
might listen at the door (one room led out of the other) to all the
conversation that went on; yet Amy could not request her visitors to
speak in a low tone. For the first year these difficulties had not
been felt; Reardon made a point of leaving the front room at his wife's
disposal from three to six; it was only when dread of the future began
to press upon him that he sat in the study all day long. You see how
complicated were the miseries of the situation; one torment involved
another, and in every quarter subjects of discontent were multiplied.

Mrs Carter would have taken it ill had she known that Amy did not
regard her as strictly an intimate. They addressed each other by their
Christian names, and conversed without ceremony; but Amy was always
dissatisfied when the well-dressed young woman burst with laughter and
animated talk into this abode of concealed poverty. Edith was not the
kind of person with whom one can quarrel; she had a kind heart, and was
never disagreeably pretentious. Had circumstances allowed it, Amy would
have given frank welcome to such friendship; she would have been glad
to accept as many invitations as Edith chose to offer. But at present
it did her harm to come in contact with Mrs Carter; it made her envious,
cold to her husband, resentful against fate.

'Why can't she leave me alone?' was the thought that rose in her mind as
Edith entered. 'I shall let her see that I don't want her here.'

'Your husband at work?' Edith asked, with a glance in the direction of
the study, as soon as they had exchanged kisses and greetings.

'Yes, he is busy.'

'And you are sitting alone, as usual. I feared you might be out; an
afternoon of sunshine isn't to be neglected at this time of year.'

'Is there sunshine?' Amy inquired coldly.

'Why, look! Do you mean to say you haven't noticed it? What a comical
person you are sometimes! I suppose you have been over head and ears in
books all day. How is Willie?'

'Very well, thank you.'

'Mayn't I see him?'

'If you like.'

Amy stepped to the bedroom door and bade the servant bring Willie for
exhibition. Edith, who as yet had no child of her own, always showed the
most flattering admir