The minister's wife, a faded-looking woman who had once possessed a delicate sort of prettiness, was waiting for us on the steps with a fine chubby baby on her arm--number five.
The home was much the sort of place I had imagined--a small house undesirably located (but cheap!), with a few straggling acres of garden and meadow upon which the minister and his boys were trying with inexperienced hands to piece out their inadequate living.

At the very first glimpse of the garden I wanted to throw off my coat and go at it.
And yet--and yet----what a wonderful thing love is! There was, after all, something incalculable, something pervasively beautiful about this poor household.

The moment the minister stepped inside his own door he became a different and livelier person.

Something boyish crept into his manner, and a new look came into the eyes of his faded wife that made her almost pretty again.

And the fat, comfortable baby rolled and gurgled about on the floor as happily as though there had been two nurses and a governess to look after him.