Then, Janet had no children.' ...

Ah! there Mammy Dempster had touched a true spring, not perhaps of her son's cruelty, but of half Janet's misery.

If she had had babes to rock to sleep--little ones to kneel in their night-dress and say their prayers at her knees--sweet boys and girls to put their young arms round her neck and kiss away her tears, her poor hungry heart would have been fed with strong love, and might never have needed that fiery poison to still its cravings.

Mighty is the force of motherhood! says the great tragic poet to us across the ages, finding, as usual, the simplest words for the sublimest fact--[Greek: deinon to tiktein estin.] It transforms all things by its vital heat: it turns timidity into fierce courage, and dreadless defiance into tremulous submission; it turns thoughtlessness into foresight, and yet stills all anxiety into calm content; it makes selfishness become self-denial, and gives even to hard vanity the glance of admiring love.

Yes! if Janet had been a mother, she might have been saved from much sin, and therefore from much of her sorrow.
But do not believe that it was anything either present or wanting in poor Janet that formed the motive of her husband's cruelty.