FATE

Mary waked next morning with the delicious sense of
impending happiness. A wonderful dream had come to
thrill her half-conscious moments, repeating itself in
increasing vividness and beauty with each awakening.
The vision had been interrupted by the unusual noise of
the snow machines on the car tracks, and yet she had
fallen asleep after each break and picked up the
rapturous scene at the exact moment of its
interruption.

She was married and madly in love with her husband.
His face she could never see quite clearly. His
business kept him away from home on long trips. But
his baby was always there--a laughing, wonderful boy
whose chubby hands persisted in pulling her hair down
into her face each time she bent over his cradle to
kiss him.

Ella was chattering in German to someone on the
stairs. She wondered again for the hundredth time
how this poor, slovenly, one-eyed, ill-kempt creature,
scrub-woman and janitress, could speak two languages
with such ease. Her English, except in excitement,
seemed equally fluent with her German. How did such a
woman fall so low? She was industrious and untiring in
her work. She never touched liquor or drugs. She was