every prudential means which the mother can devise. 
She rests upon her perfected work, and dreams of the 
new guest which it shall contain to-morrow. 
At this hallowed moment, ought not we, too, 
to reflect and ask ourselves what it is this mother’s 
heart contains ? 
A soul? Shall we dare to say that this ingenious 
architect, this tender mother, has a soul ? 
Many persons, nevertheless, full of sense and sym- 
pathy, will denounce, will reject this very natural idea 
as a scandalous hypothesis. 
Their heart would incline them towards it; their 
mind leads them to repel it; their mind, or at least 
their education, the idea which, from an early age, has been impressed 
upon them. 
