t
a whirligig. Leastways, we poor women, our lives are all cut upon one
pattern. Wasn't I for washing out my Gerard's mole in his young days?
'Oh, fie! here's a foul blot,' quo' I; and scrubbed away at it I did
till I made the poor wight cry; so then I thought 'twas time to give
over. And now says you to me, 'Mother,' says you, 'do try and wash you
out o' my Gerard's finger,' says you. Think on't!"

"Wash it out?" cried Margaret; "I wouldn't for all the world, Why, it is
the sweetest bit in his little darling body. I'll kiss it morn and night
till he that owned it first comes back to us three, Oh, bless you,
my jewel of gold and silver, for being marked like your own daddy, to
comfort me."

And she kissed little Gerard's little mole; but she could not stop
there; she presently had him sprawling on her lap, and kissed his
back all over again and again, and seemed to worry him as wolf a lamb;
Catherine looking on and smiling. She had seen a good many of these
savage onslaughts in her day.

And this little sketch indicates the tenor of Margaret's life for
several months, One or two small things occurred to her during that time
which must be told; but I reserve them, since one string will serve for
many glass beads. But while her boy's father was passing through those
fearful tempests of the soul, ending in the dead monastic calm, her life
might fairly be summed in one great blissful word--Maternity.

You, who know what lies in that word, enlarge my little sketch, and see
the young mother nursing and washing, and dressing and undressing, and
crowing and gambolling with her first-born; then swifter than lightning
dart your eye into Italy, and see the cold cloister; and the monks
passing like ghosts, eyes down, hands meekly crossed over bosoms dead to
earthly feelings.

One of these cowled ghosts is he, whose return, full of love, and youth,
and joy, that radiant young mother awaits.

In the valley of Grindelwald the traveller has on one side the
perpendicular Alps, all rock, ice, and everlasting snow, towering above
the clouds, and piercing to the sky; on his other hand little every-day
slopes, but green as emeralds, and studded with cows and pretty cots,
and life; whereas those lofty neighbours stand leafless, lifeless,
inhuman, sublime. Elsewhere sweet commonplaces of nature are apt to pass
unnoticed; but, fronting the grim Alps, they soothe, and even gently
strike, the mind by contrast with their tremendous oppos