me out of or may not, an enormous risk, a
great crisis. And when the children were young, before they had as yet
betrayed themselves what manner of spirits they were, she had her share
of the laughter and the tears; playing with her babies, living for them,
singing to them, filling her life with them, and expecting as they grew
up that all would be well. Many women live upon this hope. They have not
had the completion of life in marriage which some have; they have failed
in the great lottery, either by their own fault or the fault of others:
but the children, they say to themselves, will make all right. The
_desillusionment_ which takes this form is the most bitter of all.
The woman who has not found in her husband that dearest friend, whose
companionship can alone make life happy, when she discovers after a
while that the children in whom she has placed her last hope are his
children, and not hers,--what is to become of her? She is thrown back
upon her own individuality with a shock which is often more than flesh
and blood can bear. In Mrs. Warrender's case this was not, as in some
cases, a tragical discovery, but it had an exasperating and oppressive
character which was almost more terrible. She had been able to breathe
while they were children; but when they grew up they stifled her, each
with the same "host of petty maxims" which had darkened the still air
from her husband's lips. How, in face of the fact that she had been their
teacher and guide far more than their father ever was, they should have
learned these, and put aside everything that was like her or expressed
her sentiments, was a mystery which she never could solve; but so it
was. Mr. Warrender was what is called a very good father. He did not
spoil them; bonbons of any kind, physical or spiritual, never came to
them from his hands. He could not be troubled with them much as babies,
but when they grew old enough to walk and ride with him he liked their
company; and they resembled him, which is always flattering. But he had
taken very little notice of them during the first twelve years or so of
their life. During that time they had been entirely in their mother's
hands, hearing her opinions, regulated outwardly by her will: and yet
they grew up their father's children, and not hers! How strange it
was, with a touch of the comic which made her laugh!--that laugh of
exasperation and impatience which marks the intolerable almost more than
tears do. How was it?