"That's the worst of a kiddie," Mrs. Watson said. "You can't ever
turn 'em off, as it were, or make it spades! They're always right
on the job. I'll never forget Elsie Clay. She was the best friend
I had,--my bridesmaid, too. She married, and after a while they took
a house in Jersey because of the baby. I went out there to lunch one
day. There she was in a house perfectly buried in trees, with the
rain sopping down outside, and smoke blowing out of the fireplace,
and the drawing-room as dark as pitch at two o'clock. Elsie said she
used to nearly die of loneliness, sitting there all afternoon long
listening to the trains whistling, and the maid thumping irons in the
kitchen, and picking up the baby's blocks. And they quarrelled, you
know, she and her husband--that was the beginning of the trouble.
Finally the boy went to his grandmother, and now believe Elsie's
married again, and living in California somewhere."

Margaret, hanging over the back of her chair, was an attentive listener.

"But people--people in town have children!" she said. "The
Blankenships have one, and haven't the de Normandys?"

"The Blankenship boy is in college," said Mrs. Carr-Boldt; "and the
little de Normandys lived with their grandmother until they were old
enough for boarding school."

"Well, the Deanes have three!" Margaret said triumphantly.

"Ah, well, my dear! Harry Deane's a rich man, and she was a Pell of
Philadelphia," Mrs. Crawford supplied promptly. "Now the Eastmans have
three, too, with a trained nurse apiece."