the temporary renunciation of
her work. It absorbed her fully and gloriously; it flowed through her
with her blood; it was a part of her body and the very fiber of her
soul. And it shone through her like a light: it was in the softer
touch of her hand, the deeper note of her voice, the more brooding
sweetness of her eyes. She _was_ motherhood, indeed; a young madonna
whose halo was visible even to unimaginative Ted.

Had the question occurred to him then, Ted would have said that no
artist could surrender herself thus to maternity. Peter Burnett,
reverently watching, did say, "No one but a poet could be a mother like
that!"

Sheila had been very ill at the time of the child's birth, and a year
passed before she regained her natural vigor. It was, perhaps, the
happiest year of her life. Every now and then in the course of a
lifetime, there come seasons of pure, untroubled joy, when all the
practical concerns of ordinary existence pause for a little while, and
the petty cares and worries make way, and even the commonplace
pleasures stand aside, abashed. Such a season of joy was Sheila's
then. She could never recollect it afterward without a quickening and
lifting of her heart, and she knew at the time--Oh, very surely--that
she had drawn down heaven to herself.

Of course it did not last. As her strength increased and the every day
business of living became more and more her affair, she dropped to the
level of a normal contentment, and thus to the interests that had
occupied her before the miracle was accomplished.

Eric, her little son, was well into his second year, however, before
she felt the urging restlessness of her gift, and even then she denied
the creative impulses stirring within her; she put them from her--while
she longed to yield herself to them instead. "Go away!" she said to
them fiercely. "Oh, go away before you spoil my beautiful peace!" But
for every time that she drove them forth, they returned the stronger,
as if they would proclaim: "You can't be rid of us! You may narcotize
us with the sedative of your content. You may banish us altogether.
But we'll always waken! We'll always come back! For we're a part of
_you_--just as much a part of you as your son is!"

It was true. They were, indeed, a part of her. She would always be
different from other women after all--because of them. She would
always have to reckon with them; to appease them, or to deny them at
her own bitter cost