The days passed languidly in the clean, cool house of many births. Dot's trays came to her bedside generously laden and returned empty. Her visitors brought flowers and fruit. Maude came with Ted. Edna spent an hour a day with her. Sue and Pat came twice, and Eddie spent every possible minute with her.
The girl with the red-gold hair now sat in a chair and was permitted to walk about the room. She had had no visitors, and Dot wondered about her. Her name was Vernon. That much Dot had learned, and no more.
Mrs. Lensky had departed in a whirl of good wishes, Quelques Fleurs, and Jews. Another woman now had her bed, a woman who had trod the corridors wringing her hands in agony for seven hours. Dot's heart had bled for her. She had even prayed for the strange woman and had sighed with relief when the fearful cries from the delivery room were silenced and the baby had been born. She made Eddie speak very low so that the woman might sleep all evening.
Miss Harris tiptoed about. "She had a bad time," she remarked, nodding toward the sleeping woman.
"I know," Dot replied. "Did she have a boy or a girl?"
"She had a boy," said Miss Harris, "but he's dead."
The eyes of Eddie and Dot came together for one swift second and parted abruptly.
Pain and grief after months of hoping and dreaming! What was it for? Why did women suffer pain? Yes, to continue the race. All very well. But why this? God, why? For education? Did the poor soul, sleeping so gently after
