But Mavis flatly refused to have any hired person coming between her and the transcendent joy of her life. She had waited long enough for a baby, and she proposed to keep the baby to herself.
"However successful you come to be," she said to her husband, earnestly, "I shouldn't like you to make a fine lady of me. I want to go on feeling I'm useful to you. That's my pleasure—and if good luck took it from me, I'd almost wish the bad luck back again."
"Hush," he said, gravely. "Don't speak of such a wish, even in joke."
"I only meant I'd wish for the time since we came here. I wasn't thinking of anything before then."
"All right;" and he stooped over her, and kissed her. "You've bin talking more'n enough, I dare say. Take care of yourself, and get well as fast as may be. For I can't do without you."
"That's what I wanted to hear."
"You don't take it for granted yet?"
"No. I want you to say it every time I see you."
"Good night—an' happy dreams."
"Will!" Mavis' voice was full of reproach. "Are you going without kissing the baby?"