I had hoped that her understanding and love for children might be developed in the usual and natural way, but we had now been married ten years and this hope had not been realized. She had tried most assiduously to cultivate an acquaintance with members of child-world, but into that kingdom there is no open sesame. The sure keen intuition of a child recognizes on sight a kindred spirit and Silvia's forced advances met with but indifferent response. She wistfully proposed to me one day that we adopt a child. My doubts as to the advisability of such a course were confirmed by Huldah, our strong staff in household help. In our section of the country servants were generally quite conversant with the intimate and personal affairs of the home. "Don't you never do it, Mr. Wade," she counseled. "Ready-mades ain't for the likes of her." When, in acting on this advice, I vetoed Silvia's lukewarm proposition, I was convinced of Huldah's wisdom by seeing the look of relief that flashed into my wife's troubled countenance, and I knew that her suggestion had been but a perfunctory prompting of duty. Time alone could overcome the effects of her early environment! CHAPTER II _Introducing Our Next-door Neighbors_ One morning Silvia and I lingered over our coffee cups discussing our plans for the coming summer, which included visits from my sister Beth and my college chum, Rob Rossiter. We wished to avoid having their arrivals occur simultaneously, however, because Rob was a woman-hater, or thought he was. We decided to have Beth pay her visit first and later take Rob with us on our vacation trip to some place where the fishing facilities would be to our liking. However, summer vacation time like our plans was yet far, vague and dim. [Illustration: Uncle Issachar] While I was putting on my overcoat, Silvia had gone to the window and was looking pensively at the vacant house next to ours. "I fear," she said abruptly and irrelevantly, "that we are destined to receive no part of Uncle Issachar's fortune." Uncle Issachar was a wealthy but eccentric relative of my wife. He had made us no wedding gift beyond his best wishes, but he had then informed us that at the birth of each of our prospective sons he should place in the bank to Silvia's account the sum of five thousand dollars. We had never invited him to visit us or made any overtures in the way of communication with him, lest he should think we were cultivating his acquaintance from mercenary motives. While I was debating whether the lament in Silvia's tone was for the loss of the money or the lack of children, she again spoke; this time in a tone which had lost its languor. "There is a big moving van in front of the house next door. At last we will have some near neighbors." "Are they unloading furniture?" I asked inanely, crossing to the window. "No; course not," came cheerfully from Huldah, who had come in to remove the dishes. "Most likely they are unloading lions and tigers."