ou are his ambassador on earth in
this solemn hour. What your husband was, is of little importance. There
is not a moment, waking or sleeping, day or night, that does not bring
to you its divine opportunity. This human life is yours--absolutely to
mold and fashion in body and mind as you will."

"You're just saying this to keep me from suicide," Mary interrupted.

"I am telling you the simplest truth of physical life. You can even
change the contour of your baby's head if you like. You think in your
silly fears that the bull neck and jaw of the father will reappear
in the child. It might be so unless you see fit to change it. All any
father can do is to transmit general physical traits unless modified by
the will of the mother."

"You mean that I can choose even the personal appearance of my child?"
she asked in blank amazement.

"Exactly that. Choose the type of man you wish your babe to be and it
shall be so. Who in all the world would you prefer that he resemble?"

"You," she answered promptly.

He smiled gently.

"That pays me for all my trouble, child! No doctor ever got a bigger
fee than that. Banks may fail, but I'll never lose it. Your choice
simplifies that matter very much. You won't need a picture in your
room----"

"A picture could determine the features of an unborn babe?" she asked
incredulously.

"Beyond a doubt, and it will determine character sometimes. I knew a
mother in the mountains of Vermont who hung the picture of a ship under
full sail in her living-room. She bore seven sons. Not one of them ever
saw the ocean until he was grown and yet all of them became sailors.
This was not an accident. In her age and loneliness she blamed God for
taking her children from her. Yet she had made sailors of them all by
the selection of a single piece of furniture in her room. Nature has a
way of starting her children on their journey through this world very
nearly equal--each a bundle of possibilities in the hands of a mother.
A father may transmit physical disease, if his body is unsound. Such
marriages should be prohibited by law. But nine-tenths of the spiritual
traits out of which character is formed are the work of the mother. A
criminal mother will bring into the world only criminals. A criminal
male may be the father of a saint. The responsibility of shaping the
destiny of the race rests with the mother----"

The Doctor sprang to his feet and paced the floor, his arms gripped
behind his back i