to matter much what I do," she said. "Tommy certainly doesn't need me.
No one does. And I expect you will soon get very tired of me."

"Never, dear, never." Mrs. Ralston's hand clasped hers reassuringly.
"Never think that for a moment! From the very first day I saw you I have
wanted to have you to love and care for."

A gleam of surprise crossed Stella's face. "How very kind of you!" she
said.

"Oh no, dear. It was your own doing. You are so beautiful," murmured the
surgeon's wife. "And I knew that you were the same all through--beautiful
to the very soul."

"Oh, don't say that!" Sharply Stella broke in upon her. "Don't think it!
You don't know me in the least. You--you have far more beauty of soul
than I have, or can ever hope to have now."

Mrs. Ralston shook her head.

"But it is so," Stella insisted. "I--What am I?" A tremor of passion
crept unawares into her low voice. "I am a woman who has been denied
everything. I have been cast out like Eve, but without Eve's
compensations. If I had been given a child to love, I might have had
hope. But now I have none--I have none. I am hard and bitter,--old
before my time, and I shall never now be anything else."

"Oh, darling, no!" Very swiftly Mrs. Ralston checked her. "Indeed you
are wrong. We can make of our lives what we will. Believe me, the barren
woman can be a joyful mother of children if she will. There is always