"Do you suppose that every woman knows what love really is? No; not even every unmarried woman. There are some among them, though I believe but few, who know nothing of what love is; and there are, undoubtedly, a multitude of wives who have experienced liking, preference, affection, and taken it for love; and who reach their life's end without being aware that they have never loved. There are also, I trust, a multitude of wives who have really loved, and who have reaped the best fruits of it in regeneration of soul." "But how dreadful is the process, if it be as you say!" "I said I had alluded to only a part of it. As for what follows, according as it is prosperous or unreturned love, heaven ensues upon this purgatory, or one may attain a middle region, somewhat dim, but serene. You wish me to be plainer?" "I wish to hear all you think--all you know. But do not let us go on with it if it makes you sigh so." "What woman ever spoke of love without sighing?" said Maria, with a smile. "You sighed yourself, just now." "I was thinking of Hester, I believe. How strange, if this process really awaits women--if it is a region through which their path of life must stretch--and no one gives warning, or preparation, or help!" "It is not so strange as at first sight it seems. Every mother and friend hopes that no one else has suffered as she did--that her particular charge may escape entirely, or get off more easily. Then there is the shame of confession which is involved: some conclude, at a distance of time, that they must have exaggerated their own sufferings, or have been singularly rebellious and unreasonable. Some lose the sense of the anguish in the subsequent happiness; and there are not a few who, from constitution of mind, forget altogether `the things that are behind.' When you remember, too, that it is the law of nature and providence that each should bear his and her own burden, and that no warning would be of any avail, it seems no longer so strange that while girls hear endlessly of marriage, they are kept wholly in the dark about love." "Would warning really be of no avail?" "Of no more avail than warning to a pilgrim in the middle of the desert that he will suffer from thirst, and be deluded by the mirage, before he gets into green fields again. He has no longer the choice whether to be a pilgrim in the desert or to stay at home. No one of us has the choice to be or not to be; and we must go through with our experience, under its natural conditions." "`To be or not to be,'" said Margaret, with a grave smile. "You remind one that the choice of suicide remains: and I almost wonder--Surely suicide has been committed from dread of lighter woes than you have described." "I believe so: but in this case there is no dread. We find ourselves in the midst of the struggle before we are aware. And then--" "Ay, and then--"