"It's Mary," said Paul; "probably you forgot to give her any instructions about breakfast, in your anxiety about the future of the world. If you can calm down enough for such prosaic details, do tell her for the Lord's sake not to put so much salt in the oatmeal as there was this morning." Lydia found the negress with her wraps on, glooming darkly, "Mis' Hollister, I'm gwine to leave," she announced briefly. Lydia felt for a chair. Mary had promised faithfully to stay through the winter, until after her confinement. "What's the matter, Mary?" "I cyant stay in no house wheah de lady says I drinks." "You will stay until--until I am able to be about, won't you?" "My things is gone aready," said Mary, moving heavily toward the door, "and I'm gwine now." As she disappeared, she remarked casually, "I didn't have no time to wash the supper dishes. Good-by." "What's the matter with Mary?" called Paul. Lydia went back to him, trying to smile. "She's gone--left," she announced. Paul opened his eyes with a look of keen annoyance. "You can't break in a new cook _now_!" he said. "She can't go now!" "She's gone," repeated Lydia wearily. "I don't know how anybody could make her stay." Paul got up from the couch with his lips closed tightly together, and, sitting down in a straight chair, took Lydia on his knee as though she were a child. "Now, see here, my wife, you mustn't get your feelings hurt if I do some plain talking for a minute. You've been telling me what you think about things, and now it's my turn. And what _I_ think is that if my dear young wife would spend more time looking after her own business she'd have fewer complaints to make about my doing the same. The thing for you to do is to accept conditions as they are and do your best in them--and, really, Lydia, make your best a little better." Lydia was on the point of nervous tears from sheer fatigue, but she clung to her point with a tenacity which in so yielding a nature was profoundly eloquent. "But, Paul, if everybody had always settled down and accepted conditions, and never tried to make them better--" "There's a difference between conditions that have to be accepted and those that can be changed," said Paul sententiously. Lydia tore herself away from him and stood up, trembling with excitement. She felt that they had stumbled upon the very root of the matter. "But who's to decide which our conditions are?" Paul caught at her, laughing. "I am, of course, you firebrand! Didn't you promise to honor and obey?" He went on with more seriousness, a tender, impatient, condescending seriousness: "Now, Lydia, just stop and think! Do you, can you, consider this a good time for you to try to settle the affairs of the universe--still all upset about your father's death, and goodness knows what crazy ideas it started in your head--and with an addition to the family expected! _And_ the cook just left!"