Is it any wonder that the child is so easily deceived, and credits all
his joys to unseen ministers? It would not be hard to convince the
philosopher himself of the dual earthly character of the mother, visibly
a woman, invisibly but not the less really to her child, an ethereal
spirit of mercy and goodness! What gnaws her cheek and cheats Death into
the belief a flag of truce summons him to the final parley? Has not her
babe, her hope, been fevered and in pain, and should she sleep lest it
should leave her on this world behind, that then would need her not?
"Canst bind the sweet influences of the Pleiades?" No more can her
anxiety be