“Well, John, you must have patience with her.  Consider that she has been unfortunate in her associates.  Consider that she has been a petted child all her life, and that you have helped to pet her.  Consider how much your sex always do to weaken the moral sense of women, by liking and admiring them for being weak and foolish and inconsequent, so long as it is pretty and does not come in your way.  I do not mean you in particular, John; but I mean that the general course of society releases pretty women from any sense of obligation to be constant in duty, or brave in meeting emergencies.  You yourself have encouraged Lillie to live very much like a little humming-bird.”

“Well, I thought,” said John, “that she would in time develop into something better.”

“Well, there lies your mistake; you expected too much.  The work of years is not to be undone in a moment; and you must take into account that this is Lillie’s first adversity.  You may as well make up your mind not to expect her to be reasonable.  It seems to me that we can make up our minds to bear any thing that we know must come; and you may as well make up yours, that, for a long time, you will have to carry Lillie as a burden.  But then, you must think that she is your daughter’s mother, and that it is very important for the child that she should respect and honor her mother.  You must treat her with respect and honor, even in her weaknesses.  We all must.  We all must help Lillie as we can to bear this trial, and sympathize with her in it, unreasonable as she may seem; because, after all, John, it is a real trial to her.”

“I cannot see, for my part,” said John, “that she loves any thing.”

“The power of loving may be undeveloped in her, John; but it will come, perhaps, later in life.  At all events take this comfort to yourself,—­that, when you are doing your duty by your wife, when you are holding her in her place in the family, and teaching her child to respect and honor her, you are putting her in God’s school of love.  If we contend with and fly from our duties, simply because they gall us and burden us, we go against every thing; but if we take them up bravely, then every thing goes with us.  God and good angels and good men and all good influences are working with us when we are working for the right.  And in this way, John, you may come to happiness; or, if you do not come to personal happiness, you may come to something higher and better.  You know that you think it nobler to be an honest man than a rich man; and I am sure that you will think it better to be a good man than to be a happy one.  Now, dear John, it is not I that say these things, I think; but it seems to me it is what our mother would say, if she should speak to you from where she is.  And then, dear brother, it will all be over soon, this life-battle; and the only thing is, to come out victorious.”

“Gracie, you are right,” said John, rising up:  “I see it myself.  I will brace up to my duty.  Couldn’t you try and pacify Lillie a little, poor girl?  I suppose I have been rough with her.”