328 'GOD'S PEACE'
suddenly start a despairing howl. But most of all, she loves the tiny babies who lie in their carriages looking out into the world with big, astonished eyes. It happened to-day that we saw a young mother take up her tiny baby and lay it at her full, white bosom, which it sucked with greedy mouth and grasped with eager, little hands. With tender adoration Greta's eyes hung on the picture, and when at last she tore herself away, and we continued our walk, I saw that she had tears in her eyes.
Later, when we spoke about her love for children she said : ' My greatest wish is to be the mother of many children and live on Rough-Hill where there is room enough for them to play about. I could not imagine being married, even if I loved my husband ever so much, without having children. Is there anything more beautiful for the woman who loves her husband than to give him children ? Is there anything more wonderful than to be called mother ? 'To^ know and to feel, to hear it in the very sound of the words that one is not living in vain, but that there is some one to whom one is a necessity. My husband would not lose by the love I would give our children. I would love him still more because he was their father. But because I feel like this, I cannot understand, and am quite horrified when I read about the young women in modern literature. It almost seems as though they looked upon children as a danger to their happi- ness. And even more than that, they grumble and rebel against the cruelty of nature which makes
