My ideal woman is the one who, knowing every darkest secret of life, keeps yet a pure mind--as you do, Ida." She was silent so long that Waymark spoke again.
"Your mother died when you were eleven!" "Yes, and that was when my life began.

My mother was very poor, but she managed to send me to a pretty good school.

But for that, my life would have been very different; I should not have understood myself as well as I always have done.

Poor mother,--good, good mother! Oh, if I could but have her now, and thank her for all her love, and give her but one year of quiet happiness.

To think that I can see her as if she were standing before me, and yet that she is gone, is nowhere, never to be brought back to me if I break my heart with longing!" Tears stood in her eyes.