I assured her it would be no vacation without her.
“Do you know, Lucien,” she proposed diffidently, “I think it would be an excellent plan to invite Uncle Issachar to visit us. He knows no more about children than I do––than I did, I mean, and if he should see the Polydores he’d give us five thousand each for the children we didn’t have.”
I wouldn’t consent to this plan. I had met Uncle Issachar once. He was a crusty old bachelor with a morbid suspicion that everyone was working him for his money. I don’t wonder he thought so. He had no other attractions.
Perceiving the strength of my opposition 47 Silvia sweetly and sagaciously refrained from further pressure.
“We should not repine,” she said. “We have health and happiness and love. What are pianos and cars and trips compared to such assets?”
What, indeed! I admitted that things might be worse.
Alas! All too soon was my statement substantiated. That night after we had gone to bed, I heard a taxicab sputtering away at the house next door.
“The Polydores must have unexpected guests,” I remarked.
“I trust they brought no children with them,” murmured Silvia drowsily.
The next morning while we were at breakfast, the odor of June roses wafting in through the open window, the delicious flavor of red-ripe strawberries tickling our palate, and the anticipation of rice griddle-cakes 48 exhilarating us, the millennium came.