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288 Then he came into the living-room and helped me clear up.

I haven't mentioned yet the thorn I keep hidden in my heart and carry everywhere I go. I don't like to talk of it because Will doesn't like to have me, but it robs every joy I have of completeness. As Will and I strolled home that night perhaps we ought to have been very happy. We had the best and pleasantest friends in the world—I granted it; ground for our dream-house was to be broken on Monday morning; we had been married four years, and loved each other more than ever.

"Oh, Will, four years—four long years," I exclaimed, and sighed.

"Pshaw," he replied, and changed the subject.

Ever since Madge's little baby was born, I've wanted one of my own. I didn't care before that, but when I held the warm little thing in my arms for minutes at a time, dressed it, cared for it when the nurse was out, and listened to its poor pitiful little cry in the middle of the night, something seemed to spring open in me that I can't close.

I want a little daughter-companion of my very own! I want to wash her, and dress her and take her out with me. I want her to sit with me rainy afternoons in her little rocking-chair and play while I sew. I want her to tell me all her secrets, and I want to give her all the love, all the good times and pretty things a little girl wants. When Madge brings over her Marjorie, and I see her clinging to her mother's knee when I come into the room, I'd give anything in the world to have some little girl cling to me like that! Will has always loved children; he has