That one thing which the woman recognized as supreme is the thing which the Master of Life has committed peculiarly to womanhood. Not to woman's skillful hands; not to her ready brain; not to the things of her womanhood upon which the world into which she goes alone to labor puts a price has the Master of Life committed this supreme thing; but to her _womanhood_--her sex. In the womanhood that is denied by the world that receives womankind alone, is wealth that may not be bought by any price that the world can pay. In the womanhood of women is that supreme thing without which human life would perish from the earth. The exercise of this power alone can give to woman the high place in Life that belongs to her by right divine. The woman saw that, for her, all other work in the world would be but a makeshift--a substitute; and, because of this, while Life had, never before seemed so large, she had, never before felt so small--so useless. But still, for the woman, there was peace in her loneliness--there was a peace that she had not had before--there was a calmness, a quietness, that was not hers before her trial. It was the peace of the lonely mountain top to which one climbs from out a noisy, clamoring, village; the calmness of the deep sky uncrossed by cloud or marked by smoke of human industry; the quietness of the wide prairie, untouched by man's improvements. And this tranquil rest was hers because she knew--deep in her woman's heart she knew--that she had done well; that she had not been untrue to the soul of her womanhood. The woman knew that she had done well because she had come to understand that, while life is placed peculiarly in the care and keeping of her sex, her sex has been endowed, for the protection, perfection, and perpetuation of Life, with peculiar instincts. She had come to understand that, while woman has been made the giver and guardian of Life, she, for that reason, is subject to laws that are not to be broken save with immeasurable loss to the race. To her sex is given, by Life itself, the divine right of selection that the future of the race may be assured. To her sex is given an instinct superior to reason that her choice may perfect human kind. For her, and for the Life of her kind, there is the law that if she permits aught but her woman instinct to influence her in selecting her mate her children and the children of her children shall mourn. In the crisis of her life the woman had heard many voices--bold and tempting, pleading and subtle--urging her to say: "Yes." But always her instinct--her woman heart--had whispered: "No. This man is not your mate. This is not the man you would choose to be the father of your children. Better, far better, contribute nothing to the race than break the law of your womanhood. Better, far better, never cross the threshold of that open door than cross it with one who, in your heart of hearts you know, to be not the right one."