For the highest ideal of beauty and art. Domestic—that word is the cue to her part She would warm a man's slippers, but never his veins; She would feed well his stomach, but never his brains. And after she looks on her first baby's face, Her husband will hold but a second-class place In her thoughts or emotions, unless he falls ill, When a dozen trained nurses her place can not fill. She is sweet of her kind; and her kind since the birth Of this sin ridden, Circe-cursed planet, the Earth, Has kept it, I own, with its medleys of evil From going straight into the hands of the devil. It is not through its heroes the world lives and thrives, But through its sweet commonplace mothers and wives. We love them, and leave them; deceive, and respect them, We laud loud their virtues and straightway neglect them. They are daisy and buttercup women of earth Who grace common ways with their sweetness and worth. We praise, but we pass them, to reach for some flower That stings when we pluck it, or wilts in an hour. 

"Mouth like a bow

 "You are thornless, fair Ruth! you are useful and sweet! But lovers shall pass you to sigh at the feet Of the selfish and idle, for such is man's way; Your lot is to work, and to weep, and to pray. To give much and get little; to toil and to wait For the meager rewards of indifferent fate. Yet so wholesome your heart, you will never complain; You will feast on life's sorrow and drink of its pain, And thank God for the banquet; 'tis women like you Who make the romancing of preachers seem true. The earth is your debtor to such large amounts There must be a heaven to square up accounts, Or else the whole scheme of existence at best Is a demon's poor effort at making a jest." 

 That night as Ruth brushed out her bright hazel hair Her thoughts were of Roger, "His bold laughing air Is a cloak to some sorrow concealed in his breast, His mind is the home of some secret unrest." 

 She sighed; and there woke in her bosom once more The impulse to comfort and help him; to pour Soothing oil from the urn of her heart on his wounds. Where motherhood nature in woman abounds It is thus Cupid comes; unannounced and unbidden, In sweet pity's guise, with his arrows well hidden. But once given welcome and housed as a guest, He hurls the whole quiver full into her breast, While he pulls off his mask and laughs up in her eyes With an impish delight at her start of surprise. So intent is this archer on bagging his game He scruples at nothing which gives him good aim. 

 Ruth's heart was a virgin's, in love menaced danger While she sat 

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