herself, it was if she alone moved--moved infinitely nearer to her
husband truly, came to depend upon him, to need him as she had
never needed him in her life before. But there was always the
feeling that Warren had not moved. He stood where he had always
been, an eager sympathizer in these new and intense experiences,
but untouched and unaltered himself. For her pain, for her
responsibility, for her physical limitations, he had the most
intense tenderness and pity, but the fact remained that he might
sleep through the nights, enjoy his meals, and play with his baby,
when the mood decreed, untroubled by personal handicap.

Rachael, like all women, thought of these things seriously during
the first year of her child's life, and in February, when Jimmy
was beginning to utter his first delicious, stammering
monosyllables, it was with great gravity that she realized that
motherhood was approaching her again, that at Thanksgiving she
would have a second child. She was wretchedly languid and ill
during the entire spring, and found her mother-in-law's and Alice
Valentine's calm acceptance of the situation bewildering and
discouraging.

"My dear, I don't eat a meal in comfort, the entire time!" Alice
said cheerfully. "I mind that more than any other phase!"

"But I am such a broken reed!" Rachael smiled ruefully. "I have no
energy!"

The older woman laughed.

"I know, my dear--haven't I been through it all? Just don't worry,