Read "The Mother's Recompense" by Edith Wharton online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
As Kate Clephane drove up late that night to the house in Fifth Avenue / she seemed to be reliving all her former anguished returns there, real / or imaginary, from the days when she had said to herself: "Shall I / never escape? " to those others when, from far off, she had dreamed of / the hated threshold, and yearned for it, and thought: "Shall I never / get back?"
She had said she might be late in returning, and had begged that no one / should stay up for her. Her wish, as usual, had been respected, and she / let herself into the hushed house, put out the lights, and stole up / past the door where Anne lay sleeping her last young sleep.