As the first year of married life goes, Charlotte's first year was
fairly successful. She knew Blake's faults already, and had made up
her mind to them, and if there was a frank indifference in his quiet
languor, she had made up her mind to that, too. He was never unkind,
and there were times when some fresh evidence of her devotion to him
would touch him into an appreciation that was almost responsive. And
there were other times when she would find him looking at her with an
expression which any other observer might have classed as pity, but
which she counted as tenderness. On the whole, it seemed to her that
time was bringing them together, as she had counted that it would, and
with this hope her face lost its sharp outlines.

Her first heavy chagrin was at the time of her baby's birth. When
Blake came into the room to inquire for her, and she turned down the
bed-cover to show him the little bundle at her side, a look of pain
and aversion flashed across his face, and he moved away, begging her
not to show the baby to him until it was older. On another day she
tried to make him select a name for it, and he refused.

"Call it anything you please," he said at first, but she would not let
him go at that.

"I've been thinking," she suggested, with a hesitation that was
foreign to her,--"I've been thinking of calling her for your
mother--Dorcas."

They were alone in the room, and he was sitting by her bed, but
looking away from her into the corner of the room, while she looked
anxiously at him. At her words he started, flashing a keen glance at