I was doing some figuring in a note-book when my wife asked:
"Robert, what is your problem to-night? And what part have I in it?"

"So important a part that I couldn't solve it without you," I
replied, smiling at her.

"Oh, come now," she said, laughing slightly for the first time in
the evening; "you always begin to flatter a little when you want to
carry a point."

"Well, then, you are on your guard against my wiles. But believe me,
Winifred, the problem on my mind is not like one of my ordinary
brown studies; in those I often try to get back to the wherefore of
things which people usually accept and don't bother about. The
question I am considering comes right home to us, and we must meet
it. I have felt for some time that we could not put off action much
longer, and to-night I am convinced of it."

Then I told her how I had found three of the children engaged that
evening, concluding: "The circumstances of their lot are more to
blame than they themselves. And why should I find fault with you
because you are nervous? You could no more help being nervous and a
little impatient than you could prevent the heat of the lamp from
burning you, should you place your finger over it. I know the cause
of it all. As for Mousie, she is growing paler and thinner every
day. You know what my income is; we could not change things much for
the better by taking other rooms and moving to another part of the
city, and we might find that we had changed for the worse. I propose
that we go to the country and get our living out of the soil."