I am sometimes called upon to fulfil the vocation of motherhood in a very real sense, as when I have to announce to some child who has no mother that the arrangements for her engagement are about to be completed, but that her father, who feels he could not expect her to speak of such a matter, has asked me to find out her desires regarding the proposed bridegroom. After an inevitable tear, shed at the suggestion that she must some day leave her father's home, she asks me if I am satisfied with the plan; on my answering in the affirmative her face brightens, though she conventionally begs me to use my influence to dissuade her father from any such intention. I, seeing that no difficulty presents itself, change the subject and bring her a few days later the gifts and silver ornaments which indicate that all is settled. She, having no mother to do the necessary grumbling at the inferior quality of the bridegroom's presents, comes to my room later on, and says: "I have been examining these, and perceive that the silver used is not pure in quality." Having shown that she, though motherless, is not easily taken in, she accepts my exhortation to be a good child and to be thankful for what she has, and without further ado begins her preparations for the day when she will "change her home." The more modern parent is sometimes desirous that his daughter, who has reached years of discretion, should from time to time correspond with her fiance. The letters all being sent to the girl's father, he forwards them to me, and the fear lest any fellow-student should know of so immodest a proceeding always leads the girl to read them in my room, and place them in my hand for safe keeping. It was enlightening to receive a request on one occasion that I would, at the close of term, return "those letters which are of no possible use." I knew to what she referred, and mentally noted that the "useless" paper found a very safe place in the recesses of her luggage! [Illustration: LING AI, HER CHILDREN, AND HER MOTHER, MRS. LIANG. _To face page 252._] Tragedy is interwoven with the life of almost every woman in this land. Disappointment at her birth finds its only consolation in the recognition of her value in the home as family drudge. Only as mother of her son does she enter on an inheritance of sufficient consideration to make her well worth the clothes she wears and the food she consumes.