rld, a thing more tragic than all the tears
the world has ever shed. You don't know what it is. One pays for one's
sin, and then one pays again, and all one's life one pays. You must
never know that.--As for me, if suffering be an expiation, then at this
moment I have expiated all my faults, whatever they have been; for to-
night you have made a heart in one who had it not, made it and broken
it.--But let that pass. I may have wrecked my own life, but I will not
let you wreck yours. You--why, you are a mere girl, you would be lost.
You haven't got the kind of brains that enables a woman to get back. You
have neither the wit nor the courage. You couldn't stand dishonour! No!
Go back, Lady Windermere, to the husband who loves you, whom you love.
You have a child, Lady Windermere. Go back to that child who even now,
in pain or in joy, may be calling to you. God gave you that child. He
will require from you that you make his life fine, that you watch over
him. What answer will you make to God if his life is ruined through you?
Back to your house, Lady Windermere--your husband loves you! He has
never swerved for a moment from the love he bears you. But even if he
had a thousand loves, you must stay with your child. If he was harsh to
you, you must stay with your child. If he ill-treated you, you must stay
with your child. If he abandoned you, your place is with your
child.--_Lady Windermere's Fan_.

MOTHERHOOD MORE THAN MARRIAGE

Men don't understand what mothers are. I am no different from other
women except in the wrong done me and the wrong I did, and my very heavy
punishments and great disgrace. And yet, to bear you I had to look on
death. To nurture you I had to wrestle with it. Death fought with me
for you. All women have to fight with death to keep their children.
Death, being childless, wants our children from us. Gerald, when you
were naked I clothed you, when you were hungry I gave you food. Night
and day all that long winter I tended you. No office is too mean, no
care too lowly for the thing we women love--and oh! how _I_ loved _you_.
Not Hannah, Samuel more. And you needed love, for you were weakly, and
only love could have kept you alive. Only love can keep any one alive.
And boys are careless often and without thinking give pain, and we always
fancy that when they come to man's estate and know us better they will
repay us. But it is not so. The world draws them from our sid