Page:MacGrath--The luck of the Irish.djvu/200



HE unmarried woman must have something to satisfy her instincts of motherhood; thus we find the spinster coddling the cat or cooing to the canary. A single man has so many diversions that he need be lonely only during his meals, and not always then. He has no mother instincts; he cannot boast of father instincts before the fact.

Ruth, having finished her breakfast of toast and chocolate, sat cross-legged among the tumbled bed-clothes and analyzed an astonishing discovery. She had found an outlet to the mother instinct by establishing a protectorate over William Grogan. Since the death of her father she had been without any practical objective in life. She loved children, but it was impossible to mother the wild little animals under her tutelage. She never could get very close to them sentimentally, for the reason that teachers are looked upon by pupils as natural enemies. If some little girl made her the gift of a bouquet or some little boy left an apple on her desk, she readily understood the impulse behind the act—a plea for immunity from punishment the next time punishment was due. But to get them snuggling in her arms was nigh impossible.

The majority of them had all the mothering