And there the speaker paused. For along the carriage-drive, all in the pleasant sunshine, the children of the house, a trifle inebriated by recent dinner of chicken and rice pudding, by freedom, and the open air, went forth with shoutings and laughter for their afternoon walk. First Sybil and her younger sister, arrayed in straight, scarlet jackets, beneath which showed a long length of tan boot and tan stocking, encasing very active legs. Then the portly coachman, leading a donkey, upon which the three-year-old son and heir of the Bellingham family, also scarlet-coated, made a first essay in horsemanship. Finally, two nurses clothed in white. The little girls ran wildly, their gay figures backed by a bank of shrubbery--rusty red of berberis and glinting green of laurels--while the pink and azure balloon-balls they carried were whisked heavenward by the wind to the uttermost length of each tethering string. Around the procession, barking, circling, jumping high in air after the floating balls, and even threatening assault of the donkey's nose, skirmished a couple of rough Irish terriers. The donkey shied, the coachman admonished, a laughing nurse ran forward and clutched the small cavalier by the outstanding skirt of his coat and by the seat of his nether garments. The little girls shrieked and capered, and in such hilarious fashion the company passed out of sight. Laurence Rivers's eyes rested rather wistfully upon the scene. It belonged to the great, good-natured, uninspired Commonplace upon which he was just agreeing with himself to retire; and it offered a comely and wholesome enough example of the same. Mrs. Bellingham also had turned towards the window, and the expression of her neat face had softened. The self-consciousness, the worldliness therein usually displayed, were in abeyance, while the beautiful content of motherhood was regnant, visibly enthroned. Laurence had never supposed she could look so charming, and he could have found it in his heart to envy his friend Jack Bellingham. Very early in their connection Virginia had pointed out to him, with consummate tact but entire lucidity, that the modern husband, who marries a fascinating woman of society and really appreciates her, will give proof of such appreciation by relegating the matter of child-bearing to a dim and distant future. It will come all in good time no doubt, but it can wait. For is not it really a little too much, in these days of enlightened equality between man and woman, to require the latter to forego amusement, to endure serious discomfort, risk her freshness and her figure, even come within measurable distance--in not infrequent cases--of the supremely foolish calamity of death?--Political economy and the health of the race notwithstanding, let the poor breed; let the obscure breed; let that innumerable company of women, to whom life offers so much of a trial and so little of a pastime, that in the sum-total of their infelicity one pain or peril the