at home and not to be able to give the freshest and
best of himself to business." It was not until later, as she was
dressing Ariadne, that she swung slowly back to her new doubt of that
view of the problem.

Ariadne was in one of her most talkative moods, and was describing at
great length the dream that had frightened her so. There was a hen with
six little chickens, she told her mother, and one of them was as big--as
big--

"Yes, dear; and what did the big little chicken do?" Lydia laced up the
little shoes, on her knees before the small figure, her mind whirling.
"That was just the trouble, she couldn't make it seem right any more,
that Paul's best and freshest should _all_ go to making money and none
to a consideration of why he wished to make it."

"Yes, Ariadne, and it flew over the house, and then?"

She began buttoning the child's dress, and lost herself in ecstasy over
the wisps of soft curls at the back of the rosy neck. She dropped a
sudden kiss on the spot, in the midst of Ariadne's narrative, and the
child squealed in delighted surprise. Lydia was carried away by one of
her own childlike impulses of gayety, and burrowed bear-like, growling
savagely, in the soft flesh. Ariadne doubled up, shrieking with
laughter, the irresistible laughter of childhood. Lydia laughed in
response, and the two were off for one of their rollicking frolics. They
were like a couple of kittens together. Finally, "Come, dear; we must
get our breakfasts," said Lydia, leading along the little girl, still
flushed and smiling from her play.

Her passion for the child grew with Ariadne's growth, and there were
times when she was tempted to agree in the unspoken axiom of those about
her, that all she needed was enough children to fill her heart and hands
too full for thought; but sometimes at night, when Paul was away and she
had the little crib moved close to her bed, very different ideas came to
her in the silent hours when she lay listening to the child's quick,
regular breathing. At such times, when her mind grew very clear in the
long pause between the hurry of one day and the next, she had rather a
sort of horror in bringing any more lives into a world which she could
do so little to make ready for them. Ariadne was here, and, oh! She must
do something to make it better for her! Her desire that Ariadne should
find it easier than she to know how to live well, rose to a fervor that
was a prayer emanating from all her being. Per