Jewel Weed

"Dick," said Lena imperatively, "there's a carriage coming!"

"Let it come!" said Dick. "Sorry I haven't a safety-pin, girlie, but I

guess this one will do till you get home." That impulsive interest in

all varieties of human nature was so natural to him that he took for

granted that it was a part of our common nature.

He looked up with a smile to see Lena's face crimson with wrath and

shame. Her expression sobered him.

"What's the matter?" he demanded.

"It was Mrs. Lenox who drove by," she urged. "And she looked so

amused."

"I don't wonder. I'm amused myself," he replied gaily.

"A nice thing for a gentleman to be seen doing," Lena went on, with a

voice growing shrill like her mother's. "To play nursemaid to a dirty

little street brat!" She had said things like this to him before, but

always with that little smile and naughty-child air. Now, for the first

time she forgot the smile, and this small omission made an astonishing

difference in the impression.

"I don't know what else a gentleman should do," answered Dick; "or a

lady, either. Mrs. Lenox would have done as much for any baby, her own

or another."

"Much she would!" said Lena sharply. "I've been at her house. She has

rafts of nurses to do all the waiting on her children. I guess she

doesn't let them trouble her any more than she can help. If she's

unlucky enough to have the squally little things, she keeps away from

them."

Even as she spoke, Lena realized that her acid voice was a mistake, but

she said to herself that she was tired of acting, and it did not make

any difference what Dick thought now. She was his wife.

"Perhaps you don't know the whole, Lena," Dick answered. "I happen to

have seen Mrs. Lenox when she was devoting herself to a sick baby, and

Madeline has told me of the kind of personal care she gives."

"The more fool she, when she can get some one else to do it for her,"

said Lena, with feminine change of front.

"Is that the way you feel about children?" asked Dick soberly.

"I suppose they are necessary evils," said Lena with a smart laugh. "But

I'd rather they'd be necessary to other women than to me."

"Well, perhaps that's a natural feeling, when we're young and like to be

irresponsible; but I fancy, dear, that things look pretty different as

we get along and are willing to pay the price for our happinesses--to

pay for love with service and self-sacrifice. As for me, I pray that you

and I may not some day be childless old folks."

Lena glanced at him sidewise as they walked, and his somber face showed

her that her mistake went deeper than she had suspected.