A horrible feeling came on Gwen that her mother was about to cry. She took out one or two of the things. “That is lovely lace,” she said hurriedly, “better than any the woman showed me. I had no idea you had any interest in such matters.” Then one fervent wish took possession of her, that her mother would complete her gift and go, but she was not to be delivered just yet. Mrs. Waring was on her way to the door with bowed head, when suddenly with a short smothered cry she turned and faced her daughter. She saw the quick recoil in the girl’s face, and with a supreme effort the small fragile creature calmed herself and sat down. “Gwen,” she said, looking at the tall woman brooding gloomily above her, then at the basket on the bed, “will you try to suffer my love, dear? I cannot ask you for yours, I have not earned it, I never knew what it was to be a mother till too late. But, dear, take the love I bear you gently, don’t recoil from me as you did just now,”—Gwen winced—“as you’ve done many times. I will not intrude on you, dear, I have made a mistake to-day in asking you to accept those things.” “No, no, mother,” interrupted the girl. “Yes, dear, I have, I do not reproach you, but you are hard, and that fault is mine more than yours. When you were a little child, Gwen, did you ever wish for my love—I mean the ordinary outspoken natural love that women give their children?” Mrs. Waring bent forward and looked into her daughter’s face with wide eager eyes. Gwen looked into the upturned face and her heart stirred with pity, then a dreary feeling came on her, that the time was too solemn for lies. “I longed for it every day that I lived,” she said in a slow reluctant voice, turning away. “Ah, and now it is too late! I did cling to that last delusion, I did hope that in the careless vigour of childhood, in the fresh joy of a young animal, you might have forgotten to want the outward signs of mother-love. Gwen, Gwen dear, let your child grow into your heart with every breath, and God keep you from suffering such as mine!” She stood up softly and was about to go, but Gwen stopped her, “Mother,” she cried, “you couldn’t be expected to understand children, you were meant for intellectual uses altogether! It seems to me hard and unjust that you should now be hampered with these feelings. Why can you not go back to your old peaceful life? You were happy in it, now your work is interfered with, and you are not happy. I wish I could do anything for you, I wish I could satisfy you!” “Ah, dear, you don’t know how very little love would still my pain, but I don’t think that even if you would, you could give it to me—I don’t think you understand, dear, what love is.” “Mother,” said the girl, in a low curiously soft tone, “I do not.” Directly she had made the confession a horrible feeling of shame came on her. “She knows everything of me there is to know now!” she thought, with a dull ache, “I wonder what use she will make of it.”