she is about twelve years old they begin to
ripen, one at a time, and pass from the ovary into a nest that is all
ready for them inside the female body. This nest we call the womb. At
first, while she is so young, the womb is not strong enough to hold
the egg while it grows, so the egg soon leaves its nest to come into
the world and be lost, as so very many seeds of the plant are. As it
does so it acts in such a way on the young girl that, when she first
becomes aware that something which seems strange is happening to her,
she is frightened and does not know what to do. And as you, darling,
are now at the age when this must come to you very soon, I am going to
prepare you for it, so that you may know that it is natural, coming to
all girls of about your age, and that there is nothing to be alarmed
over. All the talks that we have had were intended as a kind of
introduction to this event and its consequences, for it is the
greatest that enters a girl's life before she has grown fully to be a
woman. And you were once one of these tiny eggs. More than that, you
now have within your body, a great number of that very kind of eggs
from which you sprang."

Elsie sat with her eyes in breathless interest on her mother, so
filled with wonder and speculation that she could not ask a single
question. Mrs. Edson proceeded:

"I must repeat dear, because it is so very important for you to
remember, that every woman has an ovary which contains many seeds or
eggs, just as the female flower has. These eggs, if left unfertilized,
will pass from the body and never grow any more. But each one, if
fertilized by the papa, as the bird's eggs were, and as the flower
seeds were, will stay in a little nook inside the mother's body, where
it will grow and grow until the time comes for it to burst forth into
the world, following the same principle that the first cell followed
in reproducing, and which all living things follow always. The life
within forces it away from the parent, to become a separate growth.
Then it will come forth, and behold, the tiny seed or egg has grown to
be a baby girl or boy, weighing several pounds!"

"Oh-h!" Elsie gasped again. "And that is how--how--I--came to be born,
mamma!"

"Yes, darlingest, it is the way in which every living person was born.
There is not, and there cannot be, any other way. Each child is a part
both of its father and mother. The egg in the mother would never grow
into a baby unless it had fi