‘THE woman’s motive? shall we daub ourselves With finding roots for nettles? ’tis soft clay And easily explored. She had the means, The monies, by the lady’s liberal grace, In trust for that Australian scheme and me, Which so, that she might clutch with both her hands, And chink to her naughty uses undisturbed, She served me (after all it was not strange; ’Twas only what my mother would have done) A motherly, unmerciful, good turn. ‘Well, after. There are nettles everywhere, But smooth green grasses are more common still; The blue of heaven is larger than the cloud; A miller’s wife at Clichy took me in And spent her pity on me,—made me calm And merely very reasonably sad. She found me a servant’s place in Paris where I tried to take the cast-off life again, And stood as quiet as a beaten ass Who, having fallen through overloads, stands up To let them charge him with another pack. ‘A few months, so. My mistress, young and light, Was easy with me, less for kindness than Because she led, herself, an easy time Betwixt her lover and her looking-glass, Scarce knowing which way she was praised the most. She felt so pretty and so pleased all day She could not take the trouble to be cross, But, sometimes, as I stooped to tie her shoe, Would tap me softly with her slender foot, Still restless with the last night’s dancing in’t, And say, ‘Fie, pale-face! are you English girls All grave and silent? mass-book still, and Lent? And first-communion colours on your cheeks, Worn past the time for’t? little fool, be gay!’ At which she vanished, like a fairy, through A gap of silver laughter. ‘Came an hour When all went otherwise. She did not speak, But clenched her brows, and clipped me with her eyes As if a viper with a pair of tongs, Too far for any touch, yet near enough To view the writhing creature,—then at last; ‘Stand still there, in the holy Virgin’s name, Thou Marian; thou’rt no reputable girl, Although sufficient dull for twenty saints! I think thou mock’st me and my house,’ she said; ‘Confess, thou’lt be a mother in a month, Thou mask of saintship.’ ‘Could I answer her? The light broke in so: it meant _that_ then, _that_? I had not thought of that, in all my thoughts,— Through all the cold, numb aching of my brow, Through all the heaving of impatient life Which threw me on death at intervals,—through all The upbreak of the fountains of my heart The rains had swelled too large: it could mean _that_? Did God make mothers out of victims, then, And set such pure amens to hideous deeds? Why not? He overblows an ugly grave With violets which blossom in the spring. And _I_ could be a mother in a month! I hope it was not wicked to be glad.