He was a romantic adorer of womanhood, as a sort of
divine mystery,—a never-ending poem; and
when his wife was long enough away from him to give
scope for imagination to work, when she no longer annoyed
him with the friction of the sharp little edges of
her cold and selfish nature, he was able to see her
once more in the ideal light of first love. After
all, she was his wife; and in that one word, to a good
man, is every thing holy and sacred. He longed
to believe in her and trust her wholly; and now that
Grace was going from him, to belong to another, Lillie
was more than ever his dependence.
On the whole, if we must admit that John was weak,
he was weak where strong and noble natures may most
gracefully be so,—weak through disinterestedness,
faith, and the disposition to make the best of the
wife he had chosen.
And so Lillie came home; and there was festivity and
rejoicing. Grace found herself floated into matrimony
on a tide bringing gifts and tokens of remembrance
from everybody that had ever known her; for all were
delighted with this opportunity of testifying a sense
of her worth, and every hand was ready to help ring
her wedding bells.
MOTHERHOOD.
It is supposed by some that to become a mother is
of itself a healing and saving dispensation; that
of course the reign of selfishness ends, and the reign
of better things begins, with the commencement of
maternity.
But old things do not pass away and all things become
new by any such rapid process of conversion.
A whole life spent in self-seeking and self-pleasing
is no preparation for the most august and austere of
woman’s sufferings and duties; and it is not
to be wondered at if the untrained, untaught, and
self-indulgent shrink from this ordeal, as Lillie
did.
The next spring, while the gables of the new cottage
on Elm Street were looking picturesquely through the
blossoming cherry-trees, and the smoke was curling
up from the chimneys where Grace and her husband were
cosily settled down together, there came to John’s
house another little Lillie.
The little creature came in terror and trembling.
For the mother had trifled fearfully with the great
laws of her being before its birth; and the very shadow
of death hung over her at the time the little new
life began.
Lillie’s mother, now a widow, was sent for,
and by this event installed as a fixture in her daughter’s
dwelling; and for weeks the sympathies of all the
neighborhood were concentrated upon the sufferer.
Flowers and fruits were left daily at the door.
Every one was forward in offering those kindly attentions
which spring up so gracefully in rural neighborhoods.
Everybody was interested for her. She was little
and pretty and suffering; and people even forgot to
blame her for the levities that had made her present
trial more severe. As to John, he watched over
her day and night with anxious assiduity, forgetting
every fault and foible. She was now more than
the wife of his youth; she was the mother of his child,
enthroned and glorified in his eyes by the wonderful
and mysterious experiences which had given this new
little treasure to their dwelling.
