If you dance or ride too much your heart suffers, and you
know what happened to Abram Bowles with drinking too much. It is much
worse,' I went on, 'if a tie is broken it is death to one or the other
or both, especially if it is done again and again. Nature maltreated
will send in her bill. That is sure as life and death, and the longer it
is delayed, the heavier the bill.' I went on and told her that Mary
Fairfax had been married seventeen years and had never borne but one
child. She had long credit, I said, but Nature sent in her bill at last,
and Mary had it to settle. Now, John, I did my duty, didn't I?"
"You did, mother. What did Jane say?"
"She said women had a hard lot to endure. She said they were born slaves
and died slaves and a good deal more of the same kind of talk. I told
her in reply that women were sent into life _to give life_, to be, as
thou said, _mothers of men_, and she laughed, a queer kind of laugh
though. Then I added, 'You may like the reason or not, Jane. You may
accept or defy it, but I tell you plainly, motherhood was and is and
always will be the chief reason and end of womanhood.
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