easure.

Even where there is no lack of money, the unavoidable restraints of the
condition, for at least some months in the year, more than
counterbalance any sentimental delight to be found in maternity. For,
before all other things in life, maternity demands unselfishness in
women; and this is just the one virtue of which women have least at this
present time--just the one reason why motherhood is at a discount, and
children are regarded as inflictions instead of blessings.

Few middle-class women are content to bring up their children with the
old-fashioned simplicity of former times, and to let them share and
share alike in the family, with only so much difference in their
treatment as is required by their difference of state; fewer still are
willing to share in the labor and care that must come with children in
the easiest-going household, and so to save in the expenses by their own
work. The shabbiest little wife, with her two financial ends always
gaping and never meeting, must have her still shabbier little drudge to
wheel her perambulator, so as to give her an air of fine-ladyhood and
being too good for work; and the most indolent housekeeper, whose work
is done in half an hour, cannot find time to go into the gardens or the
square with nurse and the children, so that she may watch over them
herself and see that they are properly cared for.

In France, where it is the fashion for mother and _bonne_ to be together
both out of doors and at home, at least the children are not neglected
nor ill-treated, as is too often the case with us; and if they are
improperly managed, according to our ideas, the fault is in the system,
not in the want of maternal supervision. Here it is a very rare case
indeed when the mother accompanies the nurse and children; and those
days when she does are nursery gala-days, to be talked of and remembered
for weeks after. As they grow older, she may take them occasionally when
she visits her more intimate friends; but this is for her own pleasure,
not their good, and is quite beside the question of going with them to
see that they are properly cared for.

It is to be supposed that each mother has a profound belief in her own
nurse, and that when she condemns the neglect and harshness shown to
other children by the servants in charge, she makes a mental reservation
in favor of her own, and is very sure that nothing improper or cruel
takes place in _her_ nursery. Her children do not compla