“Plenty!” was Marjorie’s enthusiastic answer as she let her fork drop and leaned across the table. “Isn’t there always,—with such children as ours? Oh, Hugh, dear, there never were such babies,—now don’t you laugh at me!” as a little quirk in the corner of Hugh’s mouth betrayed he was not becomingly solemn. “You know I’m not like other mothers,—brag about my children just because they’re mine—and yours—but you also know they’re extraordinarily bright.”
Hugh nodded, but there was that in his satisfied expression before his wife had completed her résumé of the day’s doings of her wonderful infants that quite persuaded her that he was of her opinion. As he laid aside his fork after his last bite of pie, his was the beatific expression of the inwardly satisfied male.
“Want help with the dishes?” he asked. Marjorie smiled at him.
“If I didn’t already know you were the best man in the world,” she complimented, “that would prove it. Don’t I know how you hate dish wiping? No, dear, there are only a few,—I’ll do them.”
“Thereby proving your own wonder,” was Hugh’s praise. “Not another woman in this town would refuse such an offer.”
Marjorie laughed and gave him a playful shove toward a chair as she handed him his paper.
“There!” she exclaimed. “Take that,—and read it. Maybe you’ll find something in it to make you appreciate your own wife and babies. I’ll be through in a minute, and there are lots of things we can do—interesting things—like sitting on the porch and looking at the moon or something. It’s been splendid for the last few nights. Have you noticed?”
Hugh yawned contentedly. “Hasn’t it always been whenever we’ve seen it together?”
It had been. Marjorie Benton was sure of that,—surer now than during any of those five years she had been married. Everything had been splendid. She could not help considering how much more they had of the worth while things in the world than any of the friends they had as her bright head bent over her dish-washing and her glance darted through the steam of the hot water occasionally to where Hugh sat absorbed in his paper.
Perhaps the Benton romance had not been as spectacular as some, but Marjorie inwardly thanked the Providence that guided her that it was more real. Hugh was right, too. It did seem such a short time that they had been married. Then, anomalously came the thought that she could not seem to remember distinctly any time when she and Hugh had not been one. She had vague memories of the time she had been teaching school in this very town—that seemed so long ago. She had been used to hearing people say she was wasting her youth, her beauty and her brains in such an occupation, but it had in a way satisfied her. Then had come Hugh. He had come to Atwood to be cashier of the bank, and, though she did not know it then, he was as much alone in the world as she herself. All those nearest to them were gone. From the time of their first meeting at a dance, Marjorie remembered that life had taken on a different meaning to her. Her thoughts flew back to those beautiful days that followed. Her lips were tender in their smile of reminiscence as she thought of that time. There had been only Hugh and Marjorie. That was how it was to-day,—except that there were two young and tender Hughs and Marjories to bind them still closer together. Marjorie’s smile grew more wistful as she thought, her mind far from the bright glasses she was burnishing as they came hot from their pan of scalding suds. Hugh’s mention of the moon to-night—He remembered it, then—She, too, remembered how they so often sat under that big elm in the moonlight, and Hugh softly, huskily singing,—Poor Hugh! Wasn’t it too bad he never could keep to the same key for two consecutive bars. But he never noticed, and she knew she never cared. What was that he was always humming?