A year rolled by, and both Mr. and Mrs. Quintin looked hopefully towards the future; two years passed and still they were childless. Mrs. Quintin would have given all the world, had she possessed it, for one of God’s blessings; she loved children, even those of other children, and _one of her own_ would have been a priceless treasure. But she lamented more on her husband’s account. She knew that he doted on children; and when she saw him take the neighbours’ children on his knee, and, after looking wistfully in their faces, rise and dash his hand across his eyes, she knew what it meant. “Oh,” she would cry, “if only these abandoned wretches who desert their offspring could realize what it is to desire them and yet live unblest! If they but knew the priceless treasures they were casting from them, they would turn and repent in sackcloth and ashes.” Mr. and Mrs. Quintin had been married about three years when one day the former called on me, his face beaming with joy, and informed me that his fondest hopes were about to be realized, and that he would like me to call and consult with his wife. I was a little surprised at this intimation, as, from what I knew of Mrs. Quintin, I had fully made up my mind that she would never become a patient of mine; however, I was glad to hear that I had been mistaken, and so, when next in the neighborhood I waited on that lady and congratulated her on her improved prospects. To my great surprise she burst into tears, and confessed that she was not _enceinte_, or likely ever to become so; that her career in M----‘s store, and continued standing for hours together, had rendered her physically unable ever to become a mother. She added that her husband had so set his heart upon the one object (viz., the desire to have children), and had spent so much money for medicine and medical advice with a view to that end, that she could not bear him to think that all his efforts were unavailing, and her complaint having assumed a form to all outward appearances similar to pregnancy, she had permitted him to delude himself with the belief that the latter was the cause of her altered appearance, and that scientific skill had counteracted the effects of years of abuse. I was greatly taken aback at this disclosure, but my surprise was as nothing compared to that in hearing the plot which the woman’s now diseased mind had concocted. She said she was going to bear reproach no longer (for, though her husband never murmured, at least in words, his friends and her neighbors were ever ready to deepen her sorrow and humiliation by taunting her with her impotency), and her eyes rolled in frenzy as she almost shouted: I MUST AND SHALL HAVE A CHILD’! Why am I prohibited from having what many do not know how to value? Many of them cast their treasures from them; shall I, frantic with despair, _refuse to pick one up_!