‘Alma can do anything,’ said Harvey, with genial conviction.

’Almost anything, I really think.  Now don’t let her lose interest in it, as she did in her music.  You have only to show that you think her drawings good, and speak about them.  She depends rather upon encouragement.’

’I know.  But it wasn’t for lack of my encouragement that she dropped her violin.’

‘So unfortunate!  Oh, she’ll come back to it, I’m sure.’

When Mrs. Frothingham paid her first visit to the newly-married couple, it amused her to find a state of things differing considerably from her anxious expectations.  True, they had only one servant within doors, the woman named Ruth, but she did not represent the whole establishment.  Having bought a horse and trap, and not feeling called upon to act as groom, Harvey had engaged a man, who was serviceable in various capacities; moreover, a lad made himself useful about the premises during the day.  Ruth was a tolerable cook, and not amiss as a housemaid.  Then, the furnishing of the house, though undeniably ‘simple’, left little to be desired; only such things were eschewed as serve no rational purpose and are mostly in people’s way.  Alma, as could at once be perceived, ran no risk of overexerting herself in domestic duties; she moved about of mornings with feather-brush, and occasionally plied an unskilful needle, but kitchenward she never turned her steps.  Imprudently, Mrs. Frothingham remarked that this life, after all, much resembled that of other people; whereat Alma betrayed a serious annoyance, and the well-meaning lady had to apologise, to admit the absence of ‘luxuries’, the homeliness of their diet, the unmistakable atmosphere of plain living and high thinking.

She remained for nearly a month, greatly enjoying herself.  Late in autumn, Alma begged her to come again, and this time the visit lasted longer; for in the first week of December the house received a new inhabitant, whose arrival made much commotion.  Alma did not give birth to her son without grave peril.  Day after day Harvey strode about the wintry shore under a cloud of dread.  However it had been with him a year ago, he was now drawn to Alma by something other than the lures of passion; the manifold faults he had discerned in her did not seriously conflict with her peculiar and many-sided charm; and the birth of her child inspired him with a new tenderness, an emotion different in kind from any that he had yet conceived.  That first wail of feeblest humanity, faint-sounding through the silent night, made a revolution in his thoughts, taught him on the moment more than he had learnt from all his reading and cogitation.