ABSTRACT
The reading went on, not of course "for ever," like that harvest melody he spoke of, but for a considerable time. The words, I concluded, were for the initiated, and not for me, and after a while I gave up trying to make out what it was all about. Those last expressions I have quoted about the "august Mother of the house" were unintelligible, and appeared to me meaningless. I had already 189come to the conclusion that however many of the ladies of the establishment might have experienced the pleasures and pains of maternity, there was really no mother of the house in the sense that there was a father of the house: that is to say, one possessing authority over the others and calling them all her children indiscriminately. Yet this mysterious non-existent mother of the house was continually being spoken of, as I found now and afterwards when I listened to the talk around me. After thinking the matter over, I came to the conclusion that "mother of the house" was merely a convenient fiction, and simply stood for the general sense of the women-folk, or something of the sort, It was perhaps stupid of me, but the story of Mistrelde, who died young, leaving only eight children, I had regarded as a mere legend or fable of antiquity.
