One day, however, he was looking through the volumes of the old Encyclopaedia Britannica in his father's library, hoping that he might find a dollar bill which the Old Gentleman told him had been at one time misplaced between the leaves of some one of the great tomes.
All at once he came upon the long article "Obstetrics," profusely illustrated with old-fashioned plates and steel engravings.

He read it from beginning to end.
It was the end of all his childish ideals, the destruction of all his first illusions.

The whole of his rude little standard of morality was lowered immediately.

Even his mother, whom he had always believed to be some kind of an angel, fell at once in his estimation.

She could never be the same to him after this, never so sweet, so good and so pure as he had hitherto imagined her.
It was very cruel, the whole thing was a grief to him, a blow, a great shock; he hated to think of it.