All mothers love their children, of course; Hagar’s love for her babies was fired with all the natural fierceness of her temperament; she would as soon have died as have had them severed from her. She answered, “You do not know what you are talking about, Sophie; if you were a mother, you would know that between my heart and these children is an invisible cord, and the nearer I am to them, the more natural and comfortable it feels; the further I am off from them, the tighter and more painful becomes the tension. It is uneasiness one room off—anxiety one flight of stairs off—I know it would be agony one street off. In short, I cannot bear to be severed from them.” “You need not be severed from them; get a nurse in the house.” “But Raymond does not like that idea; he does not want the fuss of a nurse in the house; he wishes me to put them out.” “Then Raymond is cruel and unnatural, and his plan is not to be thought of for a moment,” said Sophie; then she suddenly stopped, as though she regretted her hasty speech—a speech that Hagar immediately and indignantly took up, however. “Sophie, it is not like you to be so very unjust and harsh. Raymond is _not_ cruel!—could not _become_ so, and you know it! If he does not love these children very tenderly yet, why he _will_ love them, when they are old enough to notice and respond to his love; _besides_, I never _did_ see a man who cared much about very _young_ children, as we do. No! you must do him justice, Sophie; Raymond has very delicate and sensitive nerves; he cannot bear roughness, discord, or any other jar of the nerves that more obtuse senses could brave. He is not like _me_, who have nerves and sinews strung for endurance rather than for enjoyment. He is an _epicurean_ by constitution and temperament, and I do not know that there is any vice in that!” “No? Do you not think that when the indulgence and cultivation of these delicate and luxurious habits are made the study and object of life, to the neglect, and perchance to the positive violation of high duties, that it _is_ vice, and _may be_ crime; already you see it has made him forget not only his children’s welfare, but _your_ happiness.” “It has _not_!” replied Hagar, indignantly; “how often must I tell you, Sophie, that he does not see how much he makes me suffer—at least that he cannot see a just reason for my suffering, because he is utterly blind in this—how _can_ he be expected to sympathize in a feeling in which he does not as yet participate? You must excuse my warmth, Sophie, when you exasperate me!” Sophie smilingly caressed her, as she replied, “Forgive! I sympathize with your warm partizanship, dear Hagar; besides, to put you in a good humor, I will say, I fully believe that half smothered in this down of effeminacy is a spirit of goodness that will never be wholly quenched, if _you_ knew how to get at it. Now _I_ can, always could, elicit this good spirit. You shall see.”