'When I was young, my dear,' she said with innocent vanity, blushing like a girl, 'I was thought not to be ugly.' 'Ugly, indeed!' I exclaimed, looking around defiantly. 'My mother couldn't be ugly!' 'What do you call me now, Chris?' 'You are beautiful--beautiful!' with another defiant look. My mother shook her hand in mild remonstrance. 'You are--you are! But you're pale and thin, and you've got lines here--and here.' I smoothed them with my hand. 'And, mother, you're not old!' 'I'm forty, Chris.' 'That is not old. Tell me--why did you alter so?' 'Time and trouble alter us, dear. We can't be always bright.' I thought that I might be the trouble she referred to, and I asked the question anxiously. 'You, my darling!' she said, drawing me to her side and petting me. 'You are my joy, my comfort! I live only for you, Chris--only for you!' I noticed something here, and, with a touch of that logical argumentativeness for which I was afterwards not undistinguished, I said: 'If I am your joy and comfort, you ought to be glad.' 'And am I not glad? What does my little boy mean by his roundabouts?' 'You cried when you said I was your joy and comfort.' 'They were tears of pleasure, my dear--tears that sprang from my love for my boy. Then perhaps they sprang from the thought--for we will be truthful always, Chris--that I should like to buy my boy a new pair of boots and some new clothes, and that I couldn't because I hadn't money enough.' 'You would buy them for me if you had money?' 'Ah! what would I not buy for my darling if I had money!' How delicious it was to nestle in her arms as she poured out the love of her heart for me! How I worshipped her, and kissed her, and patted her cheek, and smoothed her hair. 'You are like a lover, my dear,' she said. 'I am your lover,' I replied, and murmured softly to myself, 'Wait till I am a man! wait till I am a man!' That night I coaxed my mother to talk to me of the time when she was young, and she did, with many a smile and many a blush; and in our one little room there was much delight. She picked out the daisies of her life, and laid them before me to gladden my heart. Simple and beautiful were they as Nature's own sweet flower. She showed me a picture of herself as a girl, and I saw its likeness to the picture I had admired in the shop window. She sang me to sleep with her dear old songs, full of sweetness and simplicity. How different are our modern songs from those sweet old airs! The charm of simplicity is wanting--but, indeed, it is wanting in other modern things as well. The spirit of simplicity dwells not in crowded places. Then commenced my first conscious worship of woman. I held her in my heart as a devotee holds a saint. How good was this world which contained such goodness! How sweet this life which contained such sweetness! She was the flower of both. Modesty, simplicity, and truth, were with her invariably. To me she became the incarnation of purity.