But behind all these attentions I discern the directing hand of Alicia. Can it be that the child has instinctively divined that I have actually broken with Gertrude on her account, that the little woman’s soul in her secretly exults in a feeling of victory? Since she cannot know all the conditions, she can feel, at most, I suppose, only a vague primitive sense of triumph in defeating the will of another woman. Perhaps I am attributing too much to her young intelligence, but at times I seem to perceive in her eyes, in her bearing, a touch of the protective instinct, of almost the maternal toward me, that I had never observed in her before. Possibly it is merely a sense of gratitude. At all events, those attentions of the little people are very soothing and grateful, notably now, since Griselda’s have declined perforce, in view of her greatly increased work in the kitchen. Yet it staggers me at times when I realize the number of souls for whose shelter and livelihood I am responsible, for the complex machinery that I must keep revolving. Experience like that should be acquired young. Like Mr. Roosevelt, I would advocate early marriages. I have found a house. In Crestlands (thrilling are the names of suburbs!) thirty-five minutes from Grand Central Station, in Westchester County. I came upon a châlet-like cottage built largely upon a rock that I believe will answer our purpose. The rent is moderate and there is said to be an asparagus bed somewhere in the "grounds." I know there are two trees with gnarled roots grasping their way downward among the stones, in a business-like struggle for existence, and there are a few inches of lawn for the children. With a veritable terrain like that as dower, it will surprise no one that I took the cottage. "The latitude’s rather uncertain, and the longitude also is vague," as vague, almost, as that of Roumania; nevertheless I shall be henceforth a dweller of Suburbia. This being Sunday, I took the children out there in the afternoon to examine their new demesne. With the air of a castellan exhibiting an old castle, I showed them through the rooms and in the phrases of the real-estate dealer I enumerated their advantages—with a heavy heart. But the children cared nothing about that. Randolph saw visions of a tent or an Indian tepee under one of the gnarled old trees and Jimmie illustrated how he would "woll down" the slope; all our "grounds" are slope _et praeterea nihil_. But Laura, detecting a neglected rose bush near one of the windows, clapped her hands for joy. "This is like the house in ’Peter Pan’, Uncle Ranny," she cried delightedly. "There will be roses peeping in, and babies peeping out."