again the slender figure hanging over the crib, he hears the crooning
and the retreating sobs. It is just as he saw and heard before he fell
asleep. No complaints, no reproaches, no irritation. Oh, what a brute he
feels! He battles with his reason and his bewilderment. Had he fallen
asleep and left her to bear that strain; or has she gone anew to the
rescue, while he slept without thought? Up out of his heart the
tenderness wells; down into his mind the revelation comes. The miracle
works. He looks and listens. In the figure hanging there so patiently
and tenderly he sees for the first time the wonderful vision of the
sweetheart wife, not lost, but enveloped in the mystery of motherhood;
he hears in the crooning voice a tone he never before knew. Mother and
child are united in mysterious converse. Where did that girl whom he
thought so unsophisticated of the world learn that marvel of
acquaintance with that babe, so far removed from his ability to reach?
It must be that while he knew the world, she understood the secret of
heaven. She is so patient. What a brute he is to grow impatient, when
she endures day and night in rapt patience and the joy of content! She
can enter a world from which he is barred. And, that is his wife! That
was his sweetheart, and is now--ah, what is she? He feels somehow
abashed; he knows that if he were ten times better than he is he might
still feel unworthy to touch the latchet of her shoes; he feels that
reverence and awe have enveloped her, and that the first happy love and
longing are springing afresh in his heart. It is his wife and his child;
apart from him unless he can note and understand that miracle of
nature's secret. Can he? Well, he will try--oh, what a brute! And he
watches the bending figure, he hears the blending of soft crooning and
retreating sobs--and, listening, he is lost in the wonder and falls
under the spell asleep.

Mrs. Y., you are happy henceforth, if you will disregard certain small