ous,
and sometimes dangerous, conclusions."

Elisabeth tossed her head; she did not like to be reproved, even by Alan
Tremaine. "My conclusions are nearly always correct, anyhow," she
retorted; "and if you get to the right place, I don't see that it
matters how you go there. I never bother my head about the 'rolling
stock' or the 'permanent way' of my intuitions; I know they'll bring me
to the right conclusion, and I leave them to work out their Bradshaw for
themselves."

In the meantime Jemima Stubbs was pouring out a recital of her
grievances into the ever-sympathetic ear of Caleb Bateson.

"You don't seem to be enjoying yourself, my lass," he had said in his
cheery voice, laying a big hand in tender caress upon the girl's narrow
shoulders.

"And how should I, Mr. Bateson, not having a beau nor nobody to talk
to?" she replied in her quavering treble. "What with havin' first mother
to nurse when I was a little gell, and then havin' Johnnie to look
after, I've never had time to make myself look pretty and to get a beau,
like other gells. And now I'm too old for that sort of thing, and yet
I've never had my chance, as you may say."

"Poor lass! It's a hard life as you've had, and no mistake."

"That it is, Mr. Bateson. Men wants gells as look pretty and make 'em
laugh; they don't care for the dull, dowdy ones, such as me; and yet how
can a gell be light-hearted and gay, I should like to know, when it's
work, work, work, all the day, and nurse, nurse, nurse, all the night?
Yet the men don't make no allowance for that--not they. They just see as
a gell is plain and stupid, and then they has nothing more to do with
her, and she can go to Jericho for all they cares."

"You've had a hard time of it, my lass," repeated Bateson, in his full,
deep voice.

"Right you are, Mr. Bateson; and it's made my hair gray, and my face all
wrinkles, and my hands a sight o' roughness and ugliness, till I'm a
regular old woman and a fright at that. And I'm but thirty-five now,
though no one 'ud believe it to look at me."

"Thirty-five, are you? B'ain't you more than that, Jemima, for surely
you look more?"

"I know I does, but I ain't; and lots o' women--them as has had easy
times and their way made smooth for them--look little more than gells
when they are thirty-five; and the men run after 'em as fast as if they
was only twenty. But I'm an old woman, I am, and I've never had time to
be a young one, and I've never had a beau nor