Page:Letters of a Javanese princess, by Raden Adjeng Kartini, 1921.djvu/302

 woman has already attended forty-eight women in child-birth, and she is such a young thing still, with all a child's eagerness.

The Regent of Rembang comes on the seventeenth of this month. I have asked him to bring his children with him. I am so anxious to make the acquaintance of my future family. The children are to be my future, and I shall live and work for them, strive, and suffer, if need be, for them. I hope that they will love me. I have asked their father to give the entire control of his children to me. My dream is to make them feel, in so far as it is possible, that they are my own children.

There are others that call themselves my children; the Under-Collector here, a rich regent's son and heir, said, "Make my child your servant, let her scrub the floor, draw water, anything that you will, if you will but let her stay with you." I listened with a smile on my face, but I felt like crying. I said nothing, promised nothing, but only prayed silently that I might lock all the little children entrusted to me safely in my heart, and nourish them with my love.

I am only going to take one child with me to my new dwelling—a girl of eight or so, who has been given into my care by her parents. She is the daughter of a teacher and has been to school. She is a lovely child, clever and quick. If she shows any inclination at all, I shall educate her for some profession. Now she receives lessons from my sister in handiwork. In the Rembang there are women and children of gentle birth who have been educated. I shall try to gain their interest in our work later.

My future sister-in-law is already "tainted" by a Western education; that will be pleasant for me. My days, at home are numbered ; only two more short months and my future protector will come for me. He —280—