Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III FROM CAUSE TO EFFECT DR. LYON'S first call after their return was upon a Mrs. Benning, a delicate, sickly woman, rapidly approaching motherhood. The doctor had grave fears for this frail woman, but with a word of good cheer, he bade her good-bye. You will send for me very soon, Mrs. Benning, he said; and as he sprang into his carriage he thought of his Ruth, so happy in anticipation, such a contrast to the distressed woman whom he had just left, her poor heart filled with sadness. I wonder, he thought, if people will ever, ever learn how they are cursed by enforced motherhood, unwelcome as in this case. In truth ' it were better for a man that a millstone be hanged around his neck and that he be cast into the sea, than that he should offend one of these little ones.' At midnight, Dr. Lyon's bell rang furiously, awakening husband and wife with a start. They had never become entirely accustomed to this startling midnight bell. Sometimes it meant only a thoughtless call from a selfish patient, but more often it rang in the solemn mystery of birth or death. I fear it is Mrs. Benning, said Robert, stumbling to the speaking tube. Please hurry doctor, will you? said an anxious voice from below, following this appeal with an account of Mrs. Benning's condition. Oh why did you not call me earlier? asked the doctor, I will be there within ten minutes. I fear I shall lose that patient, muttered Dr. Lyon as he hurried from the house. It was noontime when the doctor returned, with a look of sadness on his face, ?for he had never learned to look upon his patients as mere cases. She is dead? asked Ruth, after Robert had awakened from a refeshing sleep in the cool, darkened room which she always had ready for such times.

CHAPTER XII THE NEW BABY "May Life to you, my baby dear, Be full of love and pleasure, And earnest work that gives us here, A foretaste of the treasure Which you, God grant, in Heaven may store, To deck your crown forever more. IN the later stories which the parents told to the children, they endeavored to teach them the unfoldment and dignity of Nature, and of God's eternal plans for all His creation, from the most noxious weed, to the flowers, fishes and beautiful birds which He had endowed with the instinct to plan for, and cherish their young. In this way, step by step, they had kept them hand in hand with nature and science regarding the reproduction of living things, from the unconscious prodigality of procreation of flowers and fishes to the sensate care of more precious life, reproduced in lesser numbers. The lessons had made a deep and pure impression upon the plastic child minds, expanding from the flower stage to the mating of the birds; and their young brains not being over-burdened with an accumulation of sex facts, the spiritual side was always foremost. They also taught the children that the lower types of life were lacking in father and mother love; the love that gladly renders up its own life in sacrifice for its offspring. "Poor little babies," said Esther softly; "do they ever feel lonesome and wish their mamas and papas would love them?" "No," replied her mother, "they have at once to struggle for a living, and build a home for themselves; their span of life is so short. The mothers and the babies do not know what love means, and often the parents do not know their own children." "I am glad I know my mother;" and little Esther cuddled close to Ruth, while Lewis, not to be outdone even in love, crept slyly up and slipped his arm around h...den,