"In the case of Mrs. King, her first great error lay in the wrong motive which led to her marriage. It was ambition--not love or respect; and motherhood she regarded as a misfortune. She was evidently a woman of strong feeling, and therefore more capable of influencing the mind of her offspring. The child came into the world with the same intense hatred of the father, and rebellion against marriage, which had filled her mother's heart all these months." "How very strange!" mused Helena, bewildered. "Yes, strange, beautiful and terrible in the responsibility it places upon our sex, Helena. We make or mar the character of our offspring, often, by the thoughts we entertain during the prenatal period of their existence. You know I am an advocate for the widest education of woman; for her having all the doors of the professions, and arts, and trades, flung open to her, if she chooses to fit herself to enter them. Yet I am surprised and pained, often, as I see so many of the most interested and zealous workers in this cause, ignoring or misusing the grand and wonderful right and duty, ordained by heaven for woman--the right of moulding the mind, temper, and character of her children. You know, dear, do you not, the world-wide reputation which ancient Greece had in its glory for the beauty of its people?" "Oh, yes. I learned all about that at school. The Greeks were the handsomest people--the most perfect, physically, I suppose--of any race which ever existed." "Yes, that is true, Helena. And now let me tell you the cause of this. In Greece, a woman who was to become a mother was guarded from every annoyance, or pain, or peril; she was regarded by her husband, and by all men, as a divine being, chosen by God as a holy messenger from His very courts. She was surrounded by beautiful paintings, music, literature, and an atmosphere of love and homage. It is no wonder that the Greeks became the most beautiful people in the world. But as time passed, all this changed. Men failed to hold women in such reverence--and then Greece _fell_; and its glory, and the beauty of its people, became only a thing of the past. There is an old mythological tale that the soul of a man who maltreats a woman at this time goes into an owl's body when he dies, and remains there through three generations. But in our own country, I think women maltreat themselves more frequently. Every wrong impulse, every unkind thought or act that enters into a woman's heart, during this sacred period, should be guarded against and dispelled, with caution and with prayer. To listen to fine music, to look upon lovely objects, to enjoy agreeable surroundings, these things are not always within reach of a woman. But efforts at self-command, and an unselfish forethought for the future of the child, and prayer--the humblest can employ these means to the desired end. Prayer is the key to heaven. It admits us to the sacrament of angels. In