He radiated happiness.  When opposite Honora’s front door he would open his arms—­the signal for a race across her lawn.  Sometimes it was the little girl, with pigtails the colour of pulled molasses candy, who won the prize of the first kiss:  again it was her brother, a year her junior; and when he was raised it was seen that the seat of his trousers was obviously double.  But each of the five received a reward, and the baby was invariably lifted out of the perambulator.  And finally there was a conjugal kiss on the spindled porch.

The wife was a roly-poly little body.  In the mornings, at the side windows, Honora heard her singing as she worked, and sometimes the sun struck with a blinding flash the pan she was in the act of shining.  And one day she looked up and nodded and smiled.  Strange indeed was the effect upon our heroine of that greeting!  It amazed Honora herself.  A strange current ran through her and left her hot, and even as she smiled and nodded back, unbidden tears rose scalding to her eyes.  What was it?  Why was it?

She went downstairs to the little bookcase, filled now with volumes that were not trash.  For Hugh’s sake, she would try to improve herself this winter by reading serious things.  But between her eyes and the book was the little woman’s smile.  A month before, at Newport, how little she would have valued it.

One morning, as Honora was starting out for her lonely walk—­that usually led her to the bare clay banks of the great river—­she ran across her neighbour on the sidewalk.  The little woman was settling the baby for his airing, and she gave Honora the same dazzling smile.

“Good morning, Mrs. Spence,” she said.

“Good morning,” replied Honora, and in her strange confusion she leaned over the carriage.  “Oh, what a beautiful baby!”

“Isn’t he!” cried the little woman.  “Of all of ’em, I think he’s the prize.  His father says so.  I guess,” she added, “I guess it was because I didn’t know so much about ’em when they first began to come.  You take my word for it, the best way is to leave ’em alone.  Don’t dandle ’em.  It’s hard to keep your hands off ’em, but it’s right.”

“I’m sure of it,” said Honora, who was very red.

They made a strange contrast as they stood on that new street, with its new vitrified brick paving and white stone curbs, and new little trees set out in front of new little houses:  Mrs. Mayo (for such, Honora’s cook had informed her, was her name) in a housekeeper’s apron and a shirtwaist, and Honora, almost a head taller, in a walking costume of dark grey that would have done justice to Fifth Avenue.  The admiration in the little woman’s eyes was undisguised.

“You’re getting a bill, I hear,” she said, after a moment.

“A bill?” repeated Honora.

“A bill of divorce,” explained Mrs. Mayo.

Honora was conscious of conflicting emotions:  astonishment, resentment, and—­most curiously—­of relief that the little woman knew it.