baby-hand to my lips, while happy tears
filled my eyes.

My husband was infinitely glad, and kind
and tender. He showed to such advantage
in my sick-room! I raised up my happy
eyes proudly to him, it was so beautiful
to see him subduing his strength to our
weakness—my baby's and mine—or
exerting it only for us; bending his handsome
head down so low, yet then almost fearing to
kiss the tiny baby-cheek; looking so
concerned if the child uttered a cry, so amused
and happy if he woke a doubtful smile in its
queer little face! I thought this peace would
last. I loved my baby so intensely! he
loved it dearly and me anew through it. I
thought my deep love all that was needful
to make me a good mother. I gave up
everything to my child, and Harold thought
me a paragon, a perfect example of self-
denying love. And for a long time we lived,
O, so quietly and happy together!—we three,
my husband, myself, and our child.

Our child was a boy; he grew into a dark-
haired, blue-eyed, noble little fellow—a tiny
Harold. I turned God's free-given blessing
into a bane. How should I, undisciplined,
unable to rule myself, be able rightly to
educate another life? My husband, with his
clear, simple, practical notions, and his
decided judgment between right and wrong,
was a far more judicious and wise parent
than I. The child felt it. I worshipped,
idolised him; and he would turn from my
wild love to meet his father's calm tenderness.
The older he grew, the more plainly
he showed this preference.

"You hurt me, mamma, let me go; papa
is coming," the boy exclaimed, one day. I
had been showing him pictures, telling him
stories, lying on the ground beside him; he
had been listening with tranced attention,
his great blue eyes fixed full on mine; he
heard his father's step in the hall, and
directly he struggled to get free from my
arms.

"Papa will come; stay with poor mamma,
darling! Do you not love mamma?"

"No," the boy answered boldly; he struggled
himself free, pushed me away, and
trampled over me with his little eager feet.
I ran after him, but could not catch him in
time; Harold came in, and my child's head
was struck by the opening door; he fell, and
cut his forehead against the sharp corner
of a table. The blood flowed, and I was
terribly frightened. I caught him in my
arms; he had turned sick and quiet with the
pain, but when I took him, he called out:
"Papa! papa! papa, take me!" I could not
pacify him, so laid him in my husband's
arms.

I ran for water, sponges, and cloths; when
I returned, my boy was sitting on his father's
knee, leaning his little head back against his
shoulder, and smiling faintly at some funny
story Harold was telling him, while he held
his handkerchief to the wound. The child
let me wash and bathe and plaster up the
cut, but all the while he clung to his father's
arm, and persisted in saying that mamma
had hurt him. He would not come to me, nor
kiss me, but soon fell asleep in my husband's
arms. Harold carried him up to the nursery,
and waited to see him quietly sleeping in bed.
I should have done that, should I not? Was
I not his mother? This was not the first
time my heart had been so wounded. When
my husband left the room with our boy, I
threw myself on the floor, and gave way to a
wild passion of grief. I wailed and lamented,
almost raved. Even my child, my own child,
did not love me ; it engrossed my husband's
tenderness, and rendered me no love in
return. My passion, indulged, grew
uncontrollable. Jealousy gained sole possession of
me. Was I to be nothing now? nothing to
father, or child ?

By the time Harold came down, I had
lost all command over myself. He took me up
and laid me on the sofa; he knelt beside me,
begging and praying that I would be calm—
would, at least, tell him what was the matter.
I turned my face away, and burying it in
the pillows, which I clenched between my
aimless fingers, I shook the couch with the
strength of my agony. Poor Harold! what
could he do? pained and perplexed as he
was. He sent for our medical man, but he
was long coming. When he arrived, my
passion had raved itself out; I was weak as
a child, and suffering from extreme
exhaustion. But my state revealed to Dr.
Ryton the violence of the paroxysm just
past; I believe it was after seeing me that
day, that he began first to entertain the
opinion that sometimes I was insane.....

It is no use. I cannot write calmly and
slowly. I must hurry over all that is to
come. . . . When I again became the mother
of a living child, baby was once more for a
little while an angel of peace in the house. I
thought that this child, at least, a girl,—with
my brow and eyes they said,—should be
wholly mine. My husband might engross
the affection of our noble boy, if only this
little fragile white blossom, this lily of mine,
might rest solely and always on my bosom.
I did not like to have my husband kiss, I
hardly liked that he should see, this baby;
I never let him take it in his arms. The first
time it smiled brightly at him, and with its
little hands clutched at the dark hair of his
bent head, acute pain shot through my heart.
Do what I could, I was not able to prevent
the child from knowing and loving its father.
Soon, very soon, I had the agonising, though
self-induced, torture to bear, of seeing it turn
from my fierce love, to hold out its tiny hands
—appealingly, it seemed to me—to my
husband. It lisped Papa before ever it had once
said Mamma.

Harold's manner to his children reminded
me of what it had been to me in the days of