Mother: A Story

here,-I always forget?" said young Mrs. George Crawford, negligently. She tipped back in he

ng diamonds and still pool of the fountain, glowed over acres of matchless wood and garden. B

ok, smiled absently, finished a long colum

said she,

lazily. "My heaven-seven ch

and reading in the white-and-gray morning room. "Well," she added, dropping her magazine, and

e, life is more complicated. People used to have roomier houses, aunts and cousins and grandmothers

Watson, piously. "If there's one thing I ca

t know! Everything was so simple. All this business of sterilizing, and fumigating, and pasteuriz

? Can you blame a woman whose life is packed full of other things she simply cannot avoid, if she declines to complicate things any further? Our grandmothers didn't have telephones, or motor-cars, or week-end affairs, or even-for that matter-manicures and hair-dressers! A good heavy silk was full dress all the year 'round. They washed their own hair. The 'up-stairs girl' answered the doorbell,-why, they didn't even have talcum powder and nursery refrigerators, and sanitary rugs that have to be washed every day! Do you suppose my grandmother ever took a baby's temperature, or had its

dedly, "do you wonder that people are not having children? At first, naturally, one doesn't want them,-for three or four years, I'm sure, the thought doesn't come into one's head. But t

to have them unless you're able to do everything in th

here are clothes to think of, and dentists, and special teachers, and it's frightfully hard to get a nursery governess. A

said Margaret, with the admiration in her eyes that was so sweet to the older woman

nk Paul is still simmering, but that's neither here nor there!-then I went down with the vet to see the mare. Joe'll never forgive me if I've really broken the creat

son," Margar

r echoed, "and then came i

, Harriet!" said Mrs

confided to me that he has seven childr

they've no standard to maintain-seven, or seventeen-the only diffe

bel's been through, since she was born,-I realize that it's a little too much to expect of any woman. Now, look at us,-there are thousands of people fixed as we are. We're in an apartment hotel, with one maid. There's no room for a second maid, no porch and no back yard. We

," said Mrs. Carr-

onderful old apartment of theirs on Gramercy Park. Sid had his studio on the top floor, and she had such a lovely flat on the next floor, but there was no lift, and no laundry, and the kitchen was small-a baby takes so much fussing! And then she lost that splendid cook of hers, Germaine. She wouldn't stand it. Up to that time she'd been cooking and waiting, too, but the baby ended that. Mabel took a house, and Sid paid studio rent beside, and they had two m

went out there to lunch one day. There she was in a house perfectly buried in trees, with the rain sopping down outside, and smoke blowing out of the fireplace, and the drawing-room as dark as pitch at two o'clock. Elsie said she used to nearly die of loneliness, sitting there all afternoon long listening

he back of her chair, wa

ren!" she said. "The Blankenships hav

dt; "and the little de Normandys lived with their grand

ave three!" Margare

Pell of Philadelphia," Mrs. Crawford supplied promptly. "Now

rgaret admi

start by letting them see other children enjoying pleasures and advantages they can't afford. And now, gir

with speed. The other two, glad to be

inesslike aspect imply?" Mrs.

y cards, and you oughtn't,

Why

ve got to finish these notes, and I have to

's Fra

ges' for luncheon, and I promised Swann I'd talk t

zie! And what

d for a well-fi

e morning. You said you'd drive to the yacht club, to see about the stage for the children's play; you were to stop on the way back and see old Mrs. McNab a moment. You wanted to wr

ncy!" said her em

ll table, and was now seated there, negligently s

you, Peggy

nd you dine at Oaks-in-the-Field,

en of clubs," said Mrs. Carr-Bold

ephone old Mrs. McNab, and say that Mrs. Carr Boldt is lying down with a severe headache, and she won't be able to come in this morning? Thank you. And, Fraulein, telephone the yacht club, will you? And tell Mr. Mathews that Mrs. Carr-Boldt is indisposed and he'll have to come back this afternoon.

up their chair

son. "I'm so glad you suggested

an anything else," said Mrs