; but after time has softened sorrow into
melancholy resignation, her heart turns to her children with
redoubled fondness, and, anxious to provide for them, affection
gives a sacred, heroic cast to her maternal duties. She thinks that
not only the eye sees her virtuous efforts from whom all her
comfort now must flow, and whose approbation is life; but her
imagination, a little abstracted and exalted by grief, dwells on
the fond hope that the eyes which her trembling hand closed may
still see how she subdues every wayward passion to fulfil the
double duty of being the father as well as the mother of her
children. Raised to heroism by misfortunes, she represses the first
faint dawning of a natural inclination before it ripens into love,
and in the bloom of life forgets her sex, forgets the pleasure of
an awakening passion, which might again have been inspired and
returned. She no longer thinks of pleasing, and conscious dignity
prevents her from priding herself on account of the praise which
her conduct demands. Her children have her love, and her highest
hopes are beyond the grave, where her imagination often strays.

"I think I see her surrounded by her children, reaping the reward
of her care. The intelligent eye meets hers, whilst health and
innocence smile on their chubby cheeks, and as they grow up the
cares of life are lessened by their grateful attention. She lives
to see the virtues which she endeavored to plant on principles,
fixed into habits, to see her children attain a strength of
character sufficient to enable them to endure adversity without
forgetting their mother's example.

"The task of life thus fulfilled, she calmly waits for the sleep of
death, and rising from the grave may say, Behold, thou gavest me a
talent, and here are five talents."

Truly, if this be the result of the vindication of their rights, even the
most devoted believer in Rousseau must admit that women thereby will
gain, and not lose, in true womanliness.

From the primal source of their wrongs,--that is, the undue importance
attached to the sexual character,--Mary next explains that minor causes
have arisen to prevent women from realizing this ideal. The narrowness of
mind engendered by their vicious education hinders them from looking
beyond the interests of the present. They consider immediat