raded and brutalized."

As well as she could Lily explained all this to the woman, who lay with
her face buried in the girl's lap. Lily's arms were about her thin
shoulders in an agony of pity.

"It's hard, Lucretia, I know,--more than you can bear,--but you mustn't
forget what Sim endures too. He goes out in the storms and in the heat
and dust. His boots are hard, and see how his hands are all bruised and
broken by his work! He was tired and hungry when he said that--he didn't
really mean it."

The wife remained silent.

"Mr. Radbourn says work, as things go now, _does_ degrade a man in spite
of himself. He says men get coarse and violent in spite of themselves,
just as women do when everything goes wrong in the house,--when the
flies are thick, and the fire won't burn, and the irons stick to the
clothes. You see, you both suffer. Don't lay up this fit of temper
against Sim--will you?"

The wife lifted her head and looked away. Her face was full of hopeless
weariness.

"It ain't this once. It ain't that 't all. It's having no let-up. Just
goin' the same thing right over 'n' over--no hope of anything better."

"If you had hope of another world--"

"Don't talk that. I don't want that kind o' comfert. I want a decent
chance here. I want 'o rest an' be happy _now_." Lily's big eyes were
streaming with tears. What should she say to the desperate woman?
"What's the use? We might jest as well die--all of us."

The woman's livid face appalled the girl. She was gaunt, heavy-eyed,
nerveless. Her faded dress settled down over her limbs, showing the
swollen knees and thin calves; her hands, with distorted joints,
protruded painfully from her sleeves. All about her was the ever
recurring wealth and cheer of nature that knows no favor,--the bees and
flies buzzing in the sun, the jay and the kingbird in the poplars, the
smell of strawberries, the motion of lush grass, the shimmer of
corn-blades tossed gayly as banners in a conquering army.

Like a flash of keener light, a sentence shot across the girl's mind:
"Nature knows no title-deed. The bounty of her mighty hands falls as the
sunlight falls, copious, impartial; her seas carry all ships; her air is
for all lips, her lands for all feet."

"Poverty and suffering such as yours will not last." There was something
in the girl's voice that roused the woman. She turned her dull eyes upon
the youthful face.

Lily took her hand in both hers as if by a caress she could impar