te no more time, Mother."

"I also have a 'voice,' my dear, and I've found it extremely useful
without having recourse to a career."

"How--useful!"

"Singing lullabies to my children, for one thing. It did not seem to me
a waste of time--No, no, my girlie, no stage women in this family! We've
been conspicuous enough without that."

"Would you really mind so very much?" asked Jacqueline, wistfully.

"So much," answered her mother, smiling but grave, "that I should lock
you into the cellar on a bread-and-water diet, at the first hint of such
a thing! Understand me, I forbid it absolutely. You may put this
nonsense out of your head."

Kate had rarely occasion to speak to her children in such a tone, and
Jacqueline looked at her, rather frightened. But she said nothing.

"Why, Jacqueline, little daughter, why should you spend your youth and
your loveliness on a public that will cast you aside like an old glove
when it is worn out? No, no, there's a larger purpose for you in life
than any mere career. Careers are for the women who miss the other
things, and who use in default the best they have. Fame, bah! It does
not outlast a generation--or if it does, you will not know it. What you
have to give will outlast many generations, will never die, will become
part of the muscle and sinew and back-bone of your nation. Sons! Big,
clean, lusty, well-born children!--Why, don't you suppose you and my
clever Jemima--yes, and even my little crippled Katharine--were better
gifts for me to bring the world than a mere passing pleasure in my
voice?--Ah, Jacky, there's just one career open to women like you and
me. You know very well what it is."

The girl was oddly stirred. When her mother spoke like this, she always
thought, for some reason, of a statue she had never seen, a great bronze
Liberty, with torch aloft, lighting into her safe harbor the ships of
all the world.

But she said, after a moment, "You put me on a par with Mag Henderson,
Mother. Has she fulfilled the purpose of her creation, then?"

Kate was startled anew. Jacqueline in the role of thinker was
unexpected. But she answered, honestly as always, "I believe she has.
Nature often makes use of unworthy vessels to accomplish her own
ends--poor little vessels! Mag is waste, perhaps. Her child will not be
waste.--I'll see to that. So the balance of economy is kept.--But you
are no unworthy vessel, Jacqueline, thank God!"

The girl went to the window and stood loo