himself while she
sang to the fretful baby overhead with her sweet little tired voice; to
slipping off into the "spare room" to sleep when the child cried at
night, and Harrie, up and down with him by the hour, flitted from cradle
to bed, or paced the room, or sat and sang, or lay and cried herself, in
sheer despair of rest; to wandering away on lonely walks; to stepping
often into a neighbor's to discuss the election or the typhoid in the
village; to forgetting that his wife's conversational capacities could
extend beyond Biddy and teething; to forgetting that she might ever
hunger for a twilight drive, a sunny sail, for the sparkle and
freshness, the dreaming, the petting, the caresses, all the silly little
lovers' habits of their early married days; to going his own ways, and
letting her go hers.

Yet he loved her, and loved her only, and loved her well. That he never
doubted, nor, to my surprise, did she. I remember once, when on a visit
there, being fairly frightened out of the proprieties by hearing her
call him "Dr. Sharpe." I called her away from the children soon after,
on pretence of helping me unpack. I locked the door, pulled her down
upon a trunk tray beside me, folded both her hands in mine, and studied
her face; it had grown to be a very thin little face, less pretty than
it was in the shadow of the woodbine, with absent eyes and a sad mouth.
She knew that I loved her, and my heart was full for the child; and so,
for I could not help it, I said,--"Harrie, is all well between you? Is
he quite the same?"

She looked at me with a perplexed and musing air.

"The same? O yes, he is quite the same to me. He would always be the
same to me. Only there are the children, and we are so busy. He--why, he
loves me, you know,--" she turned her head from side to side wearily,
with the puzzled expression growing on her forehead,--"he loves me just
the same,--just the same. I am _his wife_; don't you see?"

She drew herself up a little haughtily, said that she heard the baby
crying, and slipped away.

But the perplexed knot upon her forehead did not slip away. I was rather
glad that it did not. I liked it better than the absent eyes. That
afternoon she left her baby with Biddy for a couple of hours, went away
by herself into the garden, sat down upon a stone and thought.

Harrie took a great deal of comfort in her babies, quite as much as I
wished to have her. Women whose dream of marriage has faded a little
have