at a joke. "If Lily should imagine that we were
interested in Jacky, she'd run!" he explained; "it's dangerous, Nelly,
really. You mustn't go near her!"

She promised she wouldn't; but every day of that Mercer winter of
low-hanging smoke and damp chilliness, she longed to get possession of
the child--first to make Maurice happy; then with the craving, driving,
elemental desire for maternity; and then for self-protection,--Jacky
would vanquish Edith!

So she brooded: _a child_!

"If I could only get him, it wouldn't be 'just us'!" ... "A boy's
clothes are not as pretty as a girl's, but a little rough suit would be
awfully attractive.... I'd give him music lessons.... We could go out to
our field in June. And he would take off his shoes and stockings and
wade!" How foolish Edith's grown-up childishness of wading looked,
compared to the scene which she visualized--a little, handsome boy,
standing in the shallow rippling water, bareheaded, probably; the
sunshine sifting down through the locust blossoms and touching that
thatch of yellow hair, and glinting into those blue eyes. "He would call
me 'Mamma'!" Then she hummed to herself, "'O Spring!' Oh, I _must_ have
him!" Her hope became such an obsession that its irrationality did not
strike her. It was so in her mind that she even spoke of it once to Mrs.
Houghton. "I know you _know_?" she said; "Maurice told me he told you."

Mary Houghton said, hesitatingly, "I think I know what you mean."

This was in March. Mrs. Houghton and Edith were in town for a few days'
shopping, and of course they meant to see Eleanor. "I'll go to the
dressmaker's," Edith had told her mother, "and then I'll corral Maurice,
and we'll drop in on Mrs. Newbolt, and _then_ I'll meet you at
Eleanor's. I don't hanker for a long call on Eleanor." Edith's gayly
candid face hardened.

So it was that Mrs. Houghton had arrived ahead of her girl, and the two
older women were alone before a little smoldering fire in the library.
Eleanor had left her tea tray to go across the room and give little
helpless Bingo a lump of sugar. "He only eats what I give him," she
said; "dear old Bingo! I think he actually suffers, he's so jealous."
Then, pouring Mrs. Houghton's tea, she suddenly spoke: "I know
you--know?" When Mary Houghton said, gravely, yes, she "_knew_," Eleanor
said, "Oh, Mrs. Houghton, Maurice and I are nearer to each other than we
ever were before!"

"That's as it should be. And as I knew it would b