Page:The Diothas, or, A far look ahead (IA diothasorfarlook01macn).pdf/190

 mother who, though blessed with a son, has ceased to hope for a daughter, longs for one, and vice versa.

"Ulmene was strangely moved by the letter of a former schoolmate. The writer humbly acknowledged there were many having a prior claim to favor, as she was but distantly related to her. But she conjured her, by the memory of their girlish intimacy, to take her ease into consideration. She had now been married for about ten years, years of happiness till the sweetest hope of marriage began to fade away. Her husband was as kind as, even kinder than, ever, seeing her unhappiness. But even he, at times, seemed to feel the lack of that by his fireside to which they once had looked forward with confident anticipation. Dearly as she loved him, she would be willing to see him the husband of another, if thereby this unexpressed longing could be satisfied. But, as this could not be, all that remained was, to seek to obtain, from the compassion of her highly favored friend, what God had denied to herself.

"This letter," continued Utis, "decided the matter. According to the custom observed in such matters, Niata Diotha-Mornu will, as it is called, serve a year for her adopted child. That is, she comes to our house, and remains for a year. She is the first to welcome the little one: it is she that takes entire charge of it, under the mother's direction. At the end of the year she leaves for her own home with her adopted child, to which she has henceforth all a mother's right. The real mother suffers, indeed, at the separation; but conscious of the happiness she has conferred, and which none is in better condition to appreciate than a happy mother,