The beautiful young woman and her children might have served as model for a Holy Family--some old painter's dream of a sweet benign Madonna; the trampling babe as the infant Christ; the upturned face of the little John adoring.

No place this for the scoffer.

Apart from the mere pleasure of the eye, there was ample justification for Turnham's transports.

Were they not in the presence of one of life's sublimest mysteries--that of motherhood?
Not alone the lovely Emma: no; every woman who endured the rigours of childbirth, to bring forth an immortal soul, was a holy figure.
And now for him, too, as he had been reminded, this wonder was to be worked.

Little Polly as the mother of his children--what visions the words conjured up! But he was glad Polly was just Polly, and not the peerless creature he had seen.