Tombstone epitaph., 1917-12-16

up OI uouTS Ike tHdt. NO Stue per son can even want to live in a per petual ecstasy. What makes a noun
 tain peak is the fall away into the surrounding valleys.
 In their valleys of commonplace. everyday existence-and these oc- cured even in their first days together
 they were stiff. shy, self-conscious
 with each other. And their attempt to
 ignore this fact only made the self
 consciousness the worse. It troubled and bewildered both of them.
 The arrival of the twins. in the con
 vOy of badly fiustered-and. to tell the truth, somewhat scandaliZed-
 Miss French. simplified the situation
 somewhat-by complicating it, They absolutely enforced routine. And
 they gave Rose and Rodney so many occupations that the contemplation of
 their complicated states of mind was much abridged.
 But even her babies brought Rose a | disappointment along with them. From the time of the receipt of Miss 1 French's telegram. telling them what train she and the twins would take. Rose had been telling of the hours in mounting excitement. The two ut terly adorable little creatures. as the pictures of them in Rodney's pocket hook showed them to be. who were
 miraculously. incredibly hers. were coming to bring motherhood to her She didn't go to Boston with Rod ney to meet them: stayed behind in the cottage. ostensibly to See to it. up to the very last minute. that the l fires were right (June had come in cold and rainy) and. in general to he ready. on the moment. to produce any thing that their rather unforeseeable needs might call for. Her real req son was shrinking from having her first meeting with them in the confu- sion of arrival on n station platform. under the eyes of the world. Rodney understood this well enough. and. ar irving at the cottage, he clambered out of the wagon with them and car ried them both straight in to Rose. leaving the nurse and the bewildering paraphernalia of travel for a second l trip.
 Rose, in the passionate surge of cratified desire that came with the sight of them. caught them from him. crushed them up against her breast and frightened them half to death. So that. without dissimulation. they | howled and brought Miss French fly l ing to the rescue.
 Rose didn't make a tragedy of 1t {; managed q smile at herself, though she | suspected shed cry when she got the | chance, and subjected her ideas to an | instantaneous revision. They were | persons. those two funnily indignant | little mites, with their own ideas, their own preferences, and the perfectly ade- quate conviction of being entitled to
 them. How would she herself have
 liked it. to have a total stranger, fif- ' teen feet high or so, snatch her like 1 that?
 l She was rather apologetic all day. and got her reward, especially from | the boy, who was an adventurous and rather truculent baby, much, she fan | cied, as his father must once have | been, and who took to her more quick ! ly than the girl did. Indeed, the sec ond Rodney fell in love with her al-
 most as promptly as his father had i done before him. But little Portia wasn't very far behind. Two days suf- ! feed for the conquest of the pair of them.
 ! The really disquieting discovery awaited the time when the wire edge ] motherhood had worn of when she ! could bathe them, dress them, feed | them their very strictly regiInented
 meals. without being spurred 10 the | highest pitch of alertness by the fear ! of making misunderstanding some thing like the juice of q half-orange
 at ten o'clock in the morning, the
 omission of which might have-who
 knew what disastrous consequences.
 That attitude can't last any woman
 long. and Rose, with her wonderfully
 clever hands, her wits trained not to
 be told the same thing twice, her
 pride keeping in sharp focus the de
 termination that Rodney should see
 that she could be as good nurse as
 Miss French-Rose wore off that nerv-
 ous tenseness over her new job very
 quickly. Within n week she had q
 routine established that was noiseless
 -frictionless.
 | But. do you remember how aghast
 she was over the forty weeks John Galbraith had talked about as the
 probable run of The Girl Upstairs :
 her cOnsternation over the idea of just going on doing the same thing over and over again, around and around,
 like horse at the end of a pole?"
 Well, it was with something the same feeling of consternation that
 having thrown herself heart and soul
 into the task of planning and setting
 in motion q routine for two year-and.
 a-half-old babies, she should find her.
 self straightening up and saying
 What next" and realizing that, so far as this job was concerned, there 1 was no next" The supreme merit
 of her care from now on would be-
 barring emergencies-the placid con. tinuatiOn of that routine. There were no heroics about motherhood-saye in ! emerpencv once more