a way of transferring their passionate devotion and content from
husband to child. It is like anchoring in a harbor,--a pleasant harbor,
and one in which it is good to be,--but never on shore and never at
home. Whatever a woman's children may be to her, her husband should be
always something beyond and more; forever crowned for her as first,
dearest, best, on a throne that neither son nor daughter can usurp.
Through mistake and misery the throne may be left vacant or voiceless:
but what man cometh after the King?

So, when Harrie forgot the baby for a whole afternoon, and sat out on
her stone there in the garden thinking, I felt rather glad than sorry.

It was when little Harrie was a baby, I believe, that Mrs. Sharpe took
that notion about having company. She was growing out of the world, she
said; turning into a fungus; petrifying; had forgotten whether you
called your seats at the Music Hall pews or settees, and was as afraid
of a well-dressed woman as she was of the croup.

So the Doctor's house at Lime was for two or three months overrun with
visitors and vivacity. Fathers and mothers made fatherly and motherly
stays, with the hottest of air-tights put up for their benefit in the
front room; sisters and sisters-in-law brought the fashions and got up
tableaux; cousins came on the jump; Miss Jones, Pauline Dallas, and I
were invited in turn, and the children had the mumps at cheerful
intervals between.

The Doctor was not much in the mood for entertaining Miss Dallas; he was
a little tired of company, and had had a hard week's work with an
epidemic down town. Harrie had not seen her since her wedding day, and
was pleased and excited at the prospect of the visit. Pauline had been
one of her eternal friendships at school.

Miss Dallas came a day earlier than she was expected, and, as chance
would have it, Harrie was devoting the afternoon to cutting out shirts.
Any one who has sat from two till six at that engaging occupation, will
understand precisely how her back ached and her temples throbbed, and
her fingers stung, and her neck stiffened; why her eyes swam, her cheeks
burned, her brain was deadened, the children's voices were insufferable,
the slamming of a door an agony, the past a blot, the future
unendurable, life a burden, friendship a myth, her hair down, and her
collar unpinned.

Miss Dallas had never cut a shirt, nor, I believe, had Dr. Sharpe.

Harrie was groaning over the last wristband but one, whe