Guy was a little disappointed at her prudent objection to children until
their success was established. Prudence was mere waste of time to his
courage and assurance. And he believed, though without going into the
psychology of the situation, that Bessie would be happier with a child or
two.

"Oh, how can we do any more?" she answered, in her pretty, spoiled way.
"We're trying to cut a two-yard garment out of a one-yard piece now." At
least, she was; and so Guy was.

Well, it wasn't a great matter yet. It is not in the early years of
marriage that that lack is most felt. And Bessie was not very strong; she
never seemed really well any more. She developed a succession of small
ailments, lassitudes, nerves. She dragged on the hand of life, and
complained. The local physician drugged her with a commendable spirit of
optimism and scientific experiment. But the drawl of the light voice with
its rising inflection became distinctly a whine.

She got a way of surprising Guy and upsetting his calculations with
unannounced extravagances. "What's the good of all this drudgery? We're
making no headway, getting nowhere; we might as well have what good we can
as we go along."

There was a negro woman in the kitchen now, and in the sitting-room one of
the new sewing-machines. And Guy, who, so far, had been only excavating for
the cellar of his future business house, was beginning to feel that good
foundation walls were about to start.

But, even when peevish, Bessie had a way of turning up her eyes at him that