"Oh, hang it!" I cried. "An evening of 'Ga-ga!' You might have considered _me_. It is all very well to think so much of Mrs. McCaffrey. But, of course, _I_ haven't a sister in Tremont, and _I've_ got to stay in and face the music." "Archie! Archie!" Letitia pleaded, "you are getting to be a regular old, discontented, married man. You are beginning to talk to me as though--as though I irritated you, and you couldn't stand me. Oh, dear! I should never, never have thought that merely on account of a cook--" "Of three cooks!" I insisted. Letitia turned away from me, looking miserable, and my heart smote me. The only thing to do was to make the best of it, after all. I had a particular objection to degenerating into an ogre-husband, and probably I had been exceedingly cross. Yet this situation was not due to Letitia any more than it was to me. It was due to the probably noisome Mr. McCaffrey, now defunct. He was responsible for the abominable child, and had gone peacefully to his rest without a qualm. Even cook, herself, was powerless. Domesticity was not all beer and skittles. So I smiled, and tried to look pleasantly at the brat. It was not an easy task, especially when I heard the front door shut and realized that the cook-parent was on her way to Tremont, and our fate was "Ga-ga!" until bed did us part. The child was eating the sugar sticks avidly, and was refreshingly tranquil and silent. I took up an evening paper, hoping for the best; Letitia made a feint at Ovid with one eye on the juvenile McCaffrey. This did not last long. The brat grew restless and wandered disconsolately around the room, leaving traces of sticky fingers everywhere. Letitia merely pretended to read; I could see that. She followed the child around with one eye, but said nothing, probably unwilling to disturb me. Poor Letitia! The idea that she was frightened of me was appalling. I could never endure that. I tried to lose myself in absorbing stories of fires, and abductions, and murders. The murders seemed particularly lively--almost sporty. Then I made up my mind to be good-natured and was even planning a game of hide-and-seek, or blindman's-buff, or hunt-the-slipper with Letitia and the McCaffrey cub, when my good intentions were shattered. The child began to yell. It put its finger in its mouth and shouted. Great tears rolled down its cheeks. Its face was distorted. It threw itself down on the tiger-head and commenced to kick. The room was filled with this alarming demonstration. Letitia rose, her face white; I stood up suddenly, aghast at the din. "Great goodness!" cried Letitia in consternation. "It is a fit, I think--or a convulsion--or a paralytic stroke. What's to be done, Archie? Suppose--suppose--it dies before Mrs. McCaffrey gets back? Oh, if I were only a mother, I should know what to do. Why--I wonder why I'm not a mother!"