When the familiar pungency of her boarding-house flowed in and round Mrs. Violet Smith, she paused for a moment and could not push through the oppression.  Then, with the associations of odor crowding in about her, she stripped herself of her gewgaws, as if here even the tarnished tinsel of pleasure could have no place, and tiptoed up the weary wind of three unlighted flights and through the thick staleness of unaired halls.

At the third landing a broom and a dirty tangled debris of scrub-cloths lay on the topmost stair, as if an aching slavey had not found the strength to remove them.  They caught the heel of her shoe, pitching her forward so that she fell sharply against her own door.  In the gloom she paused for a palpitating moment, her hands pressing her breast, listening; then deposited her laden hat, the little pile of tinsel and the woolen bear on the floor outside the door.

“Vi!  Vi!  That you, dear?”

She pulled at her strength and opened the door suddenly, blowing in like a gale.  “It’s me, darlin’.”

She was suddenly radiant as morning, and a figure on the bed in the far corner of the dim-lit room raised to greet her with vague, white-sleeved arms outstretched.  She flew to their haven.

“Darlin’, darlin’, how you feeling?”

“Vi, poor tired little girl!”

“Harry, how you feeling, darlin’?  They worked the force all night—­first time ever.  How you feeling, darlin’—­how?” And she burrowed kisses on the poor, white face, and then deep into the tiny crib and back again into the vague white arms.  “Oh, my babies, both of you!  How you feeling, darlin’?  So worried I’ve been.  And the kid!  Oh, God, darlin’, I—­I been so busy rightin’ stock and all—­all night they kept the force.  I got such news, darlin’.  We should worry that it’s snowing!  Such news, darlin’!  The kid, Harry—­did Mrs. Quigley bring her milk on time?  How you feeling, darlin’!  You ’ain’t coughed, have you?”

He kissed her damp hair and turned her face up like a flower, so that his deep-sunk eyes read into hers.  “I ’ain’t coughed once since noon, darlin’.  We should worry if it snows is right!  A doctor’s line of talk can’t knock me out.  I can buck up without going South.  I ’ain’t coughed once since noon, Vi; I—­”

A strangling paroxysm shook him in mockery of his words, and she crouched low beside the bed, her face etched in the agony of bearing each rack and pain with him.

“Oh, my darlin’!  Oh—­oh—­”

“It’s—­all right now, Vi!  It’s all right!  It’s all right!”

“Oh, my darlin’, yes, yes, it’s all right now!  All right now!”

She ran her hands over his face, as if to reassure herself of his very features, nor would she let him read into her streaming eyes.

“Lay quiet, Harry darlin’; it’s all right!  Oh, my darlin’!”

“’S-s-s-s-h, Vi dear!  Sure it’s all right.  ’S-s-s-s-h!  Don’t cry, Vi!”