ld me once that he could never smother
the longing to get back to one. Poor Uncle Thomas, chained to a mahogany
desk, with a Persian rug under his feet! That one little trip across the
water, when the family went last year, was the only vacation he had
taken in five years. And he came back on the next ship!"

"Jean and Stuart will have him often with them, see if they don't."

"I hope so. Change is what he needs very badly. Change! Oh, if everybody
could have that when they need it! How it does make lives over! I
know--how I do know! It's the deadly monotony that kills. Jean will
bloom under the old farmhouse roof, away from all the fuss and frivolity
she's so tired of."

"You've done some blooming yourself," observed her husband, "though I'll
venture to say you work harder than you ever did before, even at the old
loom."

She gave him a quick glance. "Oh, it wasn't play I needed--just
work--the sort of work I love. I have that now. I love the visits to the
hospital, the looking after the patients you bring home, the taking
notes of your lectures, the teaching of my evening class of
Italians--every bit of it is a delight. And then, when we do run away
for a few hours, like this----"

"We enjoy it all the more for the contrast. Yes, I think we do. It's a
pretty fine partnership, and it grows more satisfying all the time.
Here's hoping the two we've just seen start follow in our contented
footsteps. A year from now we'll know!"

CHAPTER XXIX

MILESTONES

Georgiana would not have believed that it would be a full year before
she should have a chance to see for herself what sort of life Jeannette
and Stuart were making for themselves under the conditions which seemed
such doubtful ones. But so it turned out.

It had been before Jeannette's marriage that Georgiana found a change
coming in her own life, and the months of the summer and autumn which
followed were busy with the happy preparations for the new experience.
In January her first son was born, and she learned that even a full and
joyous partnership between two human beings is not the most complete
thing that can happen to them. When she saw her husband take the round,
little pink-blanketed bundle in his arms for the first time, and watched
his face as he explored the tiny features for signs of the future, her
heart beat high with such rich content as she had not dreamed of.

"Strange, isn't it, dear!" Craig said, when he had laid the pink bundle
b