usband broke his news. He had
been so dear to her, his visits had been such a joy, and although behind
his tenderness vaguely she had sensed some change, some new excitement
in his mind, in her own absorption in their boy she had attributed it to
that. But early one evening he came in with a sheaf of roses in his
arms, and when she had exclaimed at them and breathed deep of their dewy
fragrance, Joe bent over and kissed her, and said a little huskily:

"I've got some big news for you, little wife. It's big. It's going to
mean so much."

"What is it, Joe?"

She stared up intently into his eyes. He was telling her he had made
money. He was telling how the approaching birth of their small son had
made him feel he must put an end to these ups and downs, and how he had
worked and racked his brains. He told of heavy borrowing, of anxious
weeks, of a wonderful stroke of luck at last which not only made him
rich for the moment but opened the way to wealth ahead. He was speaking
of what this would mean to them here. He knew how hard it had been for
her and how pluckily she had come through without ever asking for
anything. But all that was over now. He had made money! What was the
matter? She heard it all in fragments, topsy turvy. What was wrong?
"Here is a Joe I've never known!" Still staring up into his eyes, she
saw their strange exultant light; the excitement in his husky voice
struck into her sensitive ear and jarred; and she nearly shrank from the
clutch of his hand. She lay wondering why she was not glad, till
suddenly she saw in his face his sharp disappointment at the way she was
taking his news. With a pang of alarm she roused herself and said:

"Oh, Joe, it's too wonderful! It's so sudden it strikes me all of a
heap!" And she laughed unsteadily, seized his hand and kissed it,
talking rapidly, her eyes glistening all the while with foolish tears.
Fiercely then she asked herself, "Why can't you enter in and be gay?"
But though she was doing better now and had him talking as before, again
and again she felt he was thinking how different Amy would have
been--how in an instant, laughing and crying, she would have thrown
herself into his arms!

Yes, indeed, a Joe she had never known, shaped and moulded by the wife
who had had him in those early years when a woman can do so much with a
man, can do what sets him in a groove in work and living, tastes,
ideals. "And I thought I had done so much!" But Amy's hand had still