ial routine of her life. This was not
at all on account of ill health, for she had recovered her strength
rapidly and completely, and, like a good many normal women, had found
maternity a solvent of various slight physical disorders of her
girlhood. She felt now a more assured physical poise than ever before,
and could not attribute her disappearance from Endbury social life to
weakness. The fact was that Dr. Melton had upheld her in her wish to
nurse her baby herself, which limited her to very short absences from
the house and to a very quiet life within doors. She also discovered
that the servant problem was by no means simplified by the new member of
the family. "Girls" had always been unwilling to come out to Bellevue
because of the distance from their friends and followers, and they now
put forth another universally recognized obstacle in the phrase, "I
never work out where there is a baby. They make so much dirt." Anastasia
O'Hern was there, to be sure--heavy-handed, warm-hearted 'Stashie, who
took the new little girl to her loyal spinster heart and wept tears of
joy over her safe arrival; but 'Stashie had proved, as Paul predicted
from the first time he saw her, incorrigibly rattle-headed and
loose-ended. She had learned to prepare a number of simple, homely
dishes, quite enough to supply the actual needs of the everyday
household, and what she cooked was unusually palatable. She had the
Celtic feeling for savoriness. She had also managed, under Lydia's
zealous tuition, to overcome the Celtic tolerance for dirt, and thanks
to her square, powerful body, as strong as a ditch-digger's, she made
light work of keeping the house in a most gratifying state of
cleanliness.

But there were gaps in her equipment that were not to be filled by any
amount of tuition. In the first place, as Paul said of her, she was as
much like the traditional trim maid as a hippopotamus is like a gazelle.
Furthermore, as Dr. Melton summed up the matter in answer to one of
Paul's outbreaks against her, she was utterly incapable of comprehending
that satisfied vanity is the vital element in human life. For anything
that pertained to the appearance of things, 'Stashie was deaf, dumb and
blind. She would as soon as not put one of her savory stews on the table
in an earthen crock, and she never could be trusted to set the table
properly. There were always some kitchen spoons among the silver, and
the dishes looked, as Paul said, "as though she ha