ad Hugh's
innocent letter, and then went on to consider affairs between herself and
John.

You will probably remember also that when we were talking over the
coming of our second child five years ago you said that I was foolish
to be disturbed about it--that if I had not had the wherewithal to
feed and clothe it I might have had good cause for complaint, but
otherwise not. That is another matter we must settle before we reopen
life together. Mere food and clothes are but a part of a child's
natural and proper rights of inheritance. My future children--and I
hope I shall have more than the one I have now--must be prepared for
earnestly and rightly. We are better prepared to have children now
than when we were younger, but if we wish the best from our children,
we must give the best to their beginnings as well as to their
upbringings, and you and I would, I am sure, come much closer to each
other and begin to understand each other much better after adopting
such a policy. When we were married our love would not permit us to
exact conditions, but I have learned to love you and myself enough to
wish to consider all the conditions of which I have been speaking
before we begin to live together again.

Years ago I was glibly willing to advise my mother to get a
divorce--for her I am not sure yet but that it was the only way to
freedom--but I have lived and learned, and you see that for myself I
have not wanted it. I have come to understand that you and I are
bound together--not by the fact of Jack's presence, I mean not by the
mere knowledge that we have him, but by some other law of which he is
but the outward evidence. No magistrate could separate us. I belong
to you and you belong to me by some primal law of life, not because
some minister said over us, "Till death do you part," but because _we
have permitted ourselves to become one flesh_. Having set up these
relations, let us struggle with the conditions they entail.

There must be freedom in our home if it is to be reorganized. I want
you to be just as free as I am. I told you before you left that you
should run the farm; I still prefer it. I don't care what you do on
it, so long as you do not mortgage it. I think I have a right to keep
a certain part of it free from debt if I choose to do so, so as to be
sure of a home in my old age, since I have to suffer if we lose it;
otherwise you are free to d