It seemed to her that it was all one with the coming of the springtime, the budding of the flowers, and the westward wind—the miracle of the baby. One was first one's own sentient self, bending to the wind with the trees, breasting the curling waves of summer, and patiently listening to the song of some ambitious bird, and, before you knew how, a little thing had come nestling under your wing. The flowers had made you sister, and the wind protected you, and the grass was careful lest your foot should touch a stone. Whence did it come, the little life that was delicate as the petal of the apple-blossom, soft as a little bird asleep in a nest? In summer one felt it had come over the bending grasses and between the gentle rains, and the robins did it reverence. And in spring it was borne on the first generous, delicate wind, and the trees nodded their highest, newest boughs. And in autumn the Brown Woman of the Woods brought it, while the little chipmunks stared. In winter it came with a shaft of the loud, aggressive sun. However? Wherever? But one moment you were yourself, alone, with only your own problems. And suddenly you had been trusted with something softer than flowers, more precious than diamonds, a little molecule of life itself. Such a trust!  
Every woman had a little dream about her child. A woman of the tenements might see in a little parcel of flesh and blood a one-day president of her great republic. And another might see in him a minister of God bearing a light to thousands. And a third would see in a little daughter a voice that would gush forth in immense harmony. And some who knew the bitter tooth of want would dream of their children as powerful merchants, with great cars and yachts. Such rosy stories do women think in their heads.
 
But all Berenice could imagine was the little daughter of fair tresses in her small bed at the close o............