ay the head as if there were
something unclean in nature itself. "Conceived in iniquity and born in
sin," is the unnatural interpretation put upon the process by the
extreme religionist, and the world, by its silence, gives assent to a
judgment so marvelously warped.

Surely there is something radically wrong in this attitude. The
teachings of philosophy and the deductions of biology should find more
practical application in the daily reasoning of man. No process is
vile, no condition is unnatural. The accidental variation from a given
social practice does not necessarily entail sin. No poor little
earthling, caught in the enormous grip of chance, and so swerved from
the established customs of men, could possibly be guilty of that depth
of vileness which the attitude of the world would seem to predicate so
inevitably.

Jennie was now to witness the unjust interpretation of that wonder
of nature, which, but for Brander's death, might have been consecrated
and hallowed as one of the ideal functions of life. Although herself
unable to distinguish the separateness of this from every other normal
process of life, yet was she made to feel, by the actions of all about
her, that degradation was her portion and sin the foundation as well
as the condition of her state. Almost, not quite, it was sought to
extinguish the affection, the consideration, the care which,
afterward, the world would demand of her, for her child. Almost, not
quite, was the budding and essential love looked upon as evil.
Although her punishment was neither the gibbet nor the jail of a few
hundred years before, yet the ignorance and immobility of the human
beings about her made it impossible for them to see anything in her
present condition but a vile and premeditated infraction of the social
code, the punishment of which was ostracism. All she could do now was
to shun the scornful gaze of men, and to bear in silence the great
change that was coming upon her. Strangely enough, she felt no useless
remorse, no vain regrets. Her heart was pure, and she was conscious
that it was filled with peace. Sorrow there was, it is true, but only
a mellow phase of it, a vague uncertainty and wonder, which would
sometimes cause her eyes to fill with tears.

You have heard the wood-dove calling in the lone stillness of the
summertime; you have found the unheeded brooklet singing and babbling
where no ear comes to hear. Under dead leaves and snow-banks the
delicate arbutu