d for him.'

'As for your babe, your darling babe, whether he be yours in joy of
heart or in agony of spirit, he is still yours. No one will rob you of
him. If it be as we fear, would not I help you to love him, help you to
care for him, help you to pray for him? If it were so, would I desert
him or you because in your innocence you had been betrayed into
misfortune? Do I not feel for your child? But when he grows up and is a
man, and will have learned the facts of his early years, let him be
able to tell himself that his mother though unfortunate was pure.'

'I am pure,' she said.

'My child, my own one, can I, your mother, think aught else of you? Do
I not know your heart? Do not I know the very thoughts within you?'

'I am pure. He has become my husband, and nothing can divide us. I
never gave a thought to another man. I never had the faintest liking,
as do other girls. When he came and told me that he had seen me and
loved me, and would take me for his wife, I felt at once that I was all
his,--his to do as he liked with me, his to nourish him, his to worship
him, his to obey him, his to love him let father or mother or all the
world say what they would to the contrary. Then we were married. Till
he was my own, I never even pressed my lips upon his. But I became his
wife by a bond that nothing shall break. You tell me of God's law. By
God's law I am his wife, let the people say what they will. I have but
two to think of.'

'Yourself and him?' asked her mother.

'I have three to think of,--God, and him, and my child; and may God be
good to me and them, as in this matter I will put myself away from
myself altogether. It is for me to obey him, and I will submit myself
to none other. If he bids me go, I will go; if he bids me stay here, I
will stay. I have become his so entirely, that no judges--no judges can
divide us. Judges! I know but one Judge, and He is there; and He has
said that those whom He has joined together, man shall not put asunder.
Pure! pure! No one should praise herself, but as a woman I do know that
I am pure.'

Then the mother's heart yearned greatly towards her daughter; and yet
she was no whit changed. She knew nothing of phrases of logic, but she
felt that Hester had begged the whole question. Those whom God had
joined together! True, true! If only one could know whether in this or
the other case God had joined the couple. As Hester argued the matter,
no woman should be taken from the man s