same manner, "said rather quaintly the other day, that women were made
so there should be somebody to be patient with men. She's having
trouble with her lover, I suspect, and takes it hardly."

"But," Helen persisted more gravely, "it seems to me that you set
before the unloved wife a task to which humanity is absolutely
unequal."

"You remember St. Theresa and her two sous," Edith replied, her eyes
shining with deep inner feeling; "how she said, 'St. Theresa and two
sous are nothing, but St. Theresa and two sous and God are everything.'
I can't argue, but for myself, I could not live if I should give up my
ideal of duty."

As often it had happened before, Helen found herself so deeply moved by
the fervor and the genuineness of Edith's faith, that she felt it
impossible to go on with an argument which could convince only at the
expense of weakening this rare trust. She brought the conversation back
to its starting point.

"But about Ninitta," she said. "I saw her yesterday, and she acted as
if she had something on her mind. She somehow seemed to be trying to
tell me something. I told her that the _bambino_, as she calls Nino,
must keep her occupied most of the time, and she said the nurse stole
him away half of the day; she has the peasant instinct to take entire
charge of her own child."

"If that is a peasant instinct," Edith rejoined laughing, "I am afraid
I am a peasant."