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much admired by many worth-while men. During her honeymoon, she wrote me a most charming letter speaking of her happiness, and of her desire to make you an ideal wife. You and Edna were my guests for a few days when your first child was a year old. She seemed more beautiful than ever, with an added spiritual charm, and you were the soul of devotion. You are the type of man who pays a compliment as naturally as he breathes, and whose vision is a sensitive plate which retains an impression of every feminine grace. This impression is developed in the memory-room afterward, and framed in your conversation. The ordinary mind calls such a man a flirt, or, in common parlance, "a jollier;" but I know you to be merely appreciative of womankind in general, while your heart is beautifully loyal to its ideal. You are a clean, wholesome man, who could not descend to intrigue. You are fine-looking, and you possess a gift in conversing. Of course women are attracted to you. Edna was proud of this fact, and seemed to genuinely enjoy your popularity. That was five years ago. One year ago I visited your home. Edna was the mother of three children, born during the first five years of marriage. She had sacrificed her bloom to her babies, and was pallid and anaemic. Her form had lost its exquisites curves, and she seemed years older than her age--older indeed than you, although she is four years your junior. It is a mere incident to be a father of three children. It is a lifetime experience to be their mother. She had developed nerves, and tears came as readily as laughter came of old. She was devoted to her children, and felt a deep earnestness regarding her responsibility as a mother. But she was still the intensely loving wife, while you had sunk your role of lover-husband in that of adoring father. You did not seem to think of Edna's delicate state of health, or notice her fading beauty. You regarded her as a faithful nurse for your children, and whenever you spoke of her it was as the mother, not as the sweetheart and wife. When I mentioned the drain upon a woman's vitality to bring three robust children into life in five years, you said it was only a "natural function," and referred to the old-time families of ten and twelve children. Your grandmother had fourteen, you said, and was the picture of health at seventy-five. My own grandmother gave ten children to the world. But we must recollect how different
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