"Adrian, you don't understand. Philly roused up for a few minutes about eight o'clock,--very _piano_, poor mite, but almost herself,--and then dropped off into a beautiful sleep, bless her! The doctor has gone home and left the nurse in charge. He says things should be all right now. Oh, Adrian, Adrian!" And my wife sobbed afresh. "Then what the--what on earth are you crying for?" I demanded. "I don't know, dear," said Kitty, without making any attempt to stop. "I'm so happy!" Really, women are the most extraordinary creatures. Here was I, after the labour and anxiety of the last twenty-four hours, ready to shout for joy. I was no longer tired: I felt as if my day's work had never been. I wanted to sing--to dance--to give three cheers in a whisper. And my wife, after giving me a very bad fright, was sitting celebrating our victory by a flood of tears and other phenomena usually attributed by the masculine mind to unfathomable woe. It was all very perplexing, and I felt a trifle ill-used; but I suppose it was one of the things that mark the difference between a man and a woman. After that we sat long and comfortably. Our conversation need not be set down here, for it has no bearing on this chronicle. Finally we looked at the clock, and then at each other. "We must have been sitting here a long time," I said. "I wonder where the others are." "By the way," said Kitty, "Dilly and Dicky have arrived. Robin and Dolly wired for them this morning. They may be upstairs any moment. They were having supper in the coffee-room when last I saw them." She patted her hair. "Do I look an awful fright?" I turned in the restricted space at my command and surveyed her. "Do my eyes look wet?" she inquired, feeling in my pocket for my handkerchief. Kitty has large grey eyes. Once, during the most desperate period of our courtship, I referred to them as "twin lakes"--an indiscretion which their owner, in her less generous moments, still casts up to me. But to-night the territory surrounding them presented a distinct appearance of inundation. I continued to gaze. I thought of last night's ceaseless vigil and to-day's long-drawn battle. My wife had borne the brunt of all, and I had grudged her a few tears! My heart smote me. "Kit!" I said suddenly; "poor Kit!"... We were interrupted by the opening of the door and the entrance of what I at first took to be a chimney-sweep's apprentice, but which proved to be my brother-in-law, with evidence of electoral strenuousness written thick upon him. "Hallo, you two!" he remarked genially. Then, noticing our unconventional economy of sitting-space--"Sorry! I didn't know. I thought you'd given up that sort of thing years ago!" I rose and shook myself. "Come in, my son," I said. "Righto!" replied Gerald. Then he addressed himself to a figure which, with true delicacy of feeling, had shrunk back into the passage outside. "Come in, Moke, old man. I've got them separated now!"