make straight, and have the past undone?
To think that by a woman you've been wooed,
To think that by a woman you've been won,
Is thought too humbling and too scandalous;
Is an indignity too hard to bear!
Oh! well, sir, well; do as you please; the child
Goes with its mother, though; remember that."
And here the infant threw its eyelids back,
Revealing orbs, blue as the shadows cast
On Saranac's blue by overhanging woods.
Said Lothian, snatching up the smiling wonder,
And handing it, with kisses, to the mother:
"Take all your woman's rights; even this, the best:
Are we not each the richer by the sharing
Of such a gift? I'll not regret your daring."

NOTES.

PAGE 11.

"_Oh! lacking love and best experience._"

An extreme Materialism here comes to the support of a grim theology. In
his "Physiology and Pathology of the Mind," Dr. Maudsley says: "To talk
about the purity and innocence of a child's mind is a part of that
poetical idealism and willing hypocrisy by which man ignores realities
and delights to walk in a vain show." Such sweeping generalizations do
not inspire confidence in the writer's prudence. Christ was nearer the
truth when he said, concerning little children,--"Of such is the kingdom
of heaven."

PAGE 64.

"_Few honorable outlooks for support,
Excepting marriage._"

Referring to the fact that in Massachusetts, during the ten years from
1859 to 1869, the increase of crime among women has been much greater
than among men, Miss Catherine Beecher remarks: "But turning from these
(the criminal class) to the daughters of the most wealthy class, those
who have generous and devoted aspirations also feel that for them, too,
there is no opening, no promotion, no career, except that of
marriage,--_and for this they are trained to feel that it is disgraceful
to seek. They have nothing to do but wait to be sought. Trained to
believe marriage their highest boon, they are disgraced for seeking it,
and must affect indifference._

"Meantime to do anything to earn their own independence is what father
and brothers would deem a disgrace to themselves and their family. For
women of high position to work for their livelihood, in most cases
custom decrees as disgraceful. And then, if cast down by poverty, they
have been trained to nothing that would earn a support, or, if by chance
they have some resource, all avenues for its employment are thronged
with needy applicants."