She was aware only of the
brutality of her position; and her face, by its confused expressions and
quick changes of color, showed what painful thoughts surged. Afterward a
change came gradually. As though she could endure the ordeal only by
forgetting it and could forget it only by looking ahead into the
happiness for which it was endured, slowly there began to shine out upon
her face its ruling passion--the acceptance of life and the love of the
mother glinting as from a cloud-hidden sun across the world's storm.
When this expression had come out, it stayed there. She had forgotten
her surroundings, she had forgotten herself. Poor indeed must have been
the soul that would not have been touched by the spectacle of her,
thrilled by her as by a great vision.
There was silence in the room of young workers. Before them, on the face
of the unknown, was the only look that the whole world knows--the love
and self-sacrifice of the mother; perhaps the only element of our better
humanity that never once in the history of mankind has been misunderstood
and ridiculed or envied and reviled.
Some of them worked with faces brightened by thoughts of devoted mothers
at home; the eyes of a few were shadowed by memories of mothers
alienated or dead.
II
That morning on the ledge of rock at the rear of the cathedral Nature
hinted to passers what they would more abundantly see if fortunate
enough to be with her where she was entirely at home--out in the
country.
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