ture on earth; while the fact is, she sits for ever
in the boudoir of her mentality, gazing at her own reflection. She loves
her children because they also reflect herself, and is incapable of
unselfish pleasure in their happiness apart from her.

You will remember I urged you to wait until you could have a home,
however humble, alone with your husband, and even at the cost of that
most undesirable condition, a long engagement.

But you assured me with much spirit that you had every confidence in
your power to win Mrs. Duncan's heart, and to crown her declining years
with peace and happiness.

As well talk of decking a porcupine with wreaths of flowers, and making
it a household pet, to coddle and caress.

When I congratulated Mrs. Duncan on her son's engagement to such a
sweet, bright girl as my cousin, she assumed a martyr expression and
said, "She hoped he would be happy, even if her own heart must suffer
the pain of losing an only son."

"But," I urged, "he really adds to your life by bringing you the
companionship of a lovely daughter. My cousin will, I am sure, prove
such to you."

"I have no doubt your cousin is a most estimable girl," Madame Duncan
answered, with dignity, "but I have never yet felt the need of any close
companion save my son. You, having no children, are excusable for not
understanding my feelings, now when another claims his thoughts."

"Yet the world is maintained by such occurrences," I replied. "You took
some mother's son, or you would not have had your own."

With austere self-righteousness Mrs. Duncan corrected me.

"I married an orphan," she said.

"How thoughtful of you," I responded. "But you see it is not lack of
thought, only an accident of fate, which has prevented my cousin from
marrying an orphan. There are not enough desirable orphans to keep our
young women supplied with husbands, you know."

I think Mrs. Duncan suspected me of covert sarcasm, for she changed the
topic of conversation. But I heard her afterward talking to a bevy of
women on the sorrow of giving up a child after having reared him to
manhood's estate, and her listeners all seemed duly sympathetic.

Of course, my dear Ruth, there is an element of sadness in the happiest
of marriages for the parents of children. I think it is particularly sad
when a mother gives up a daughter, whose every thought she has shared,
and whose every pleasure she has planned, and sees her embark upon the
uncertain ocean of ma