That was not what she meant to do; that depth of godly dreaming was too cold and still a depth for her.

There must be motion and life in her means of grace, since she had the power to make others move and live.

Marriage, wifehood, motherhood, should not be for her, she said; but there was all the rest.

There were the many hundreds--the thousands, indeed, had she known it--of men and women and poor children, toiling against the impossible with hands that had long learned to labour in vain, save for the bare bread of life.

To them all, in many quarters of the land, she would be a mother, to help them, to feed them, and to heal them; to work for them and their welfare, as they had worked and toiled for the greatness of her dim, great ancestors, repaying to humanity, in one lifetime, what humanity had been forced to give them through many generations.
She would lead a holy life, for she would pray continually, when there was nothing else that she could do.