I was homesick for mother. Babies were a mystery to me, although I had
helped mother with all of hers. We had buried three of them in homemade
coffins--pioneering is a ruthless scythe, and only the fit survive. I
began to understand my mother and the glory in the character which never
faltered, although she was alone and life had been hard. How could I
whine when I had Tom and a good friend--and life was like a playground?

I loved the French. They regard life with a frankness which sometimes
shocked my reserved Boston husband. He never accepted intimacy. The
restraint of old England was still in his blood. The free winds of the
prairie had swept it from mine.

My new friends in Paris discovered my happy secret. It was my
all-absorbing thought, and I was delighted to be able to discuss it
frankly. Motherhood is the great and natural event in the life of a
woman in France, and no one makes a secret of it. I was very happy in
Paris. And then--Tom had to go to Vienna.

Not even Tom, Eve, and the promised baby could make me happy there. In
all the world I had seen no place where the line of class distinction
was so closely drawn, where social customs were so rigid and court forms
so sacred, as at the Austrian capital. Learning the social customs of
Vienna seemed as endless as counting the pebbles on the beach--and about
as useful. The clock regulated our habits in Vienna. Up to eleven
o'clock certain attire was proper. If your watch stopped you were sure
to break a social law. I once saw a distinguished diplomat in distress
because he found himself at an official function at eleven-thirty with a
black tie--or without one, I have forgotten which!