“And so, Robert,” said Ethel, “it is mother-wisdom, full of divinest love which impels Bertha to protect herself and child against what she fears in Reginald. But perhaps the same mother-wisdom, full of divine love, will—now that she is financially independent of him—bring her, in the near future, to be as noble a wife-friend to Reginald as ever a poor, struggling fellow-creature had. She is a noble woman, rightly considered.” “She is,” said Mrs. Mancredo. “And she is quite the person to never rest until she puts one for whom she feels responsible (as she now does for Reginald) into the way of finding his best self. She wants to help Reginald exactly as she will Waldemar. That is, to tell him all the facts, and then leave him free to become what he adores in—well—that is—oh, how can one express it! “For my part,” she resumed, “my love for humanity is and always has been broader, more intelligent and spiritualizing than a self-arrested, masculine soul can imagine. The fact is, men in the past have praised a _simulacrum_ of womanhood which with dire ARTS and infernal-wizzardry they, themselves demonologically concocted. Then they have set up before the _androgynous_ mind of a vigorous, virginal womanhood, this unclean SIMULACRUM of woman, as the thing that she must emulate, or be damned, to use ‘pulpit words.’ “It is of no use opening your eyes, Robert; I may take my departure the _next_ moment, but I will tell the truth _this_. But the best way to stop talking disagreeable things is to set vigorously about doing agreeable things. So now what I have to propose is this: In this house we bachelor-maids (glancing toward Ethel) and MAIDENLY-MOTHERS who _enjoy_ a celibate life, and who are legally and financially independent of men, should hold on to our shekels and our homes (NOT AS FOOLISH SOCIAL-CENTERS or as unremunerative idols, to be scrubbed and garnished, but) as centers where we can do what the Bible speaks of when it says, ‘He sets the solitary in families.’ “It takes so much time to run up and down the earth and to salary officers to show us how _not_ to do it, that I would rather permanently go right on here, ready for emergencies, with an occasional timely home-extension.” “Oh, I imagine that really would be about like our Daniel’s idea, when I was a little fellow,” said Robert. “When we first came out West, and when we had plenty of grain and three or four cows, and a well-built, sunny house, and the big windows full of plants, and an outfit of kinder-garden ‘gifts’ and Daniel’s perfect knowledge of the philosophically-religious-science of child-gardening; and when I had agreed to buy all the clothes for as many children as happened to come to the door, and when we were hindered, because the mother there,” he said, halting with a quizzical glance at Althea, “would not have all sorts of nondescript children homing themselves in our house. Your thought, Mrs. Mancredo, is about like Daniel’s and mine then was.