"Not ten, only _eight!_ He went away when I was seventeen," I answered
with dignity, wishing I dared be snappy at him: though I never am.

"And after eight years he wants to come back and find you squeezed into
a twenty-inch waist, blue muslin rag you wore at parting? No wonder
Alfred didn't succeed as a bank clerk, but had to make his hit in the
colonies. He's such a big gun that it is a pity he had to return to his
native heath and find even such a slight disappointment as a one-yard
waist measure around his--his--"

"Oh, it's not, it's not that much," I fairly gasped and I couldn't help
the tears coming into my eyes. I have never said much about it, but
nobody knows how it hurts me to be as--large as I am. Just writing it
down in a book mortifies me dreadfully. It's been coming on worse and
worse every year since I married. Poor Mr. Carter had a very good
appetite, and I don't know why I should have felt that I had to eat so
much every day to keep him company; I wasn't always so considerate about
him. Then he didn't want me to go for long walks with the dogs any more,
because married women oughtn't to, or ride horseback either--no
amusement left but himself; and--and--I just couldn't help the tears
coming and dripping as I thought about it all and that awful waist
measure in inches.

"Stop crying this minute, Molly," said Dr. John suddenly in the deep
voice he uses to Billy and me when we are really ill or tired. "You know
I was only teasing you and I won't let you--"

But I sobbed some more. I like him when his eyes come out from under his
bushy brows and are all tender and full of sorry for us.