She prepared to go out then, but Sara Lee spoke from her white bed.

“Aunt Harriet,” she said, “I don’t think I’ll ever get married.”

“I said that too, once,” said Aunt Harriet complacently.  “What’s got into your head now?”

“I don’t know,” Sara Lee replied vaguely.  “I just—­What’s the use?”

Aunt Harriet was conscious of a hazy impression of indelicacy.  Coming from Sara Lee it was startling and revolutionary.  In Aunt Harriet’s world young women did not question their duty, which was to marry, preferably some one in the neighborhood, and bear children, who would be wheeled about that same neighborhood in perambulators and who would ultimately grow up and look after themselves.

“The use?” she asked tartly.

“Of having babies, and getting to care about them, and then—­There will always be wars, won’t there?”

“You turn over and go to sleep,” counseled Aunt Harriet.  “And stop looking twenty years or more ahead.”  She hesitated.  “You haven’t quarreled with Harvey, have you?”

Sara Lee turned over obediently.

“No.  It’s not that,” she said.  And the door closed.

Perhaps, had she ever had time during the crowded months that followed, Sara Lee would have dated certain things from that cold frosty night in December when she began to question things.  For after all that was what it came to.  She did not revolt.  She questioned.

She lay in her white bed and looked at things for the first time.  The sky had seemed low that night.  Things were nearer.  The horizon was close.  And beyond that peaceful horizon, to the east, something was going on that could not be ignored.  Men were dying.  Killing and dying.  Men who had been waited for as Anna watched for her child.

Downstairs she could hear Aunt Harriet moving about.  The street was quiet, until a crowd of young people—­she knew them by their voices—­ went by, laughing.

“It’s horrible,” said Sara Lee to herself.  There was a change in her, but she was still inarticulate.  Somewhere in her mind, but not formulated, was the feeling that she was too comfortable.  Her peace was a cheap peace, bought at no price.  Her last waking determination was to finish the afghan quickly and to knit for the men at the war.

Uncle James was ill the next morning.  Sara Lee went for the doctor, but Anna’s hour had come and he was with her.  Late in the afternoon he came, however looking a bit gray round the mouth with fatigue, but triumphant.  He had on these occasions always a sense of victory; even, in a way, a feeling of being part of a great purpose.  He talked at such times of the race, as one may who is doing his best by it.

“Well,” he said when Sara Lee opened the door, “it’s a boy.  Eight pounds.  Going to be red-headed, too.”  He chuckled.

“A boy!” said Sara Lee.  “I—­don’t you bring any girl babies any more?”