if she is wise she goes.

"I see in your great eyes what you are thinking," she said, glancing at
him; "I always know what the person I am talking to is thinking of. How
is this woman who makes such a fuss worse off than I? I will show you
by a very little example. We stand here at this gate this morning, both
poor, both young, both friendless; there is not much to choose between
us. Let us turn away just as we are, to make our way in life. This
evening you will come to a farmer's house. The farmer, albeit you come
alone on foot, will give you a pipe of tobacco and a cup of coffee and
a bed. If he has no dam to build and no child to teach, tomorrow you can
go on your way, with a friendly greeting of the hand. I, if I come to
the same place tonight, will have strange questions asked me, strange
glances cast on me. The Boer-wife will shake her head and give me food
to eat with the Kaffers, and a right to sleep with the dogs. That would
be the first step in our progress--a very little one, but every step to
the end would repeat it. We were equals once when we lay new-born babes
on our nurses' knees. We will be equals again when they tie up our jaws
for the last sleep!"

Waldo looked in wonder at the little quivering face; it was a glimpse
into a world of passion and feeling wholly new to him.

"Mark you," she said, "we have always this advantage over you--we can at
any time step into ease and competence, where you must labour patiently
for it. A little weeping, a little wheedling, a little self-degradation,
a little careful use of our advantages, and then some man will say:
"Come, be my wife!" With good looks and youth marriage is easy to
attain. There are men enough; but a woman who has sold herself, even for
a ring and a new name, need hold her skirt aside for no creature in the
street. They both earn their bread in one way. Marriage for love is the
beautifulest external symbol of the union of souls; marriage without it
is the uncleanliest traffic that defiles the world." She ran her little
finger savagely along the topmost bar, shaking off the dozen little
dewdrops that still hung there. "And they tell us we have men's
chivalrous attention!" she cried. "When we ask to be doctors, lawyers,
law-makers, anything but ill-paid drudges, they say--No; but you have
men's chivalrous attention; now think of that and be satisfied! What
would you do without it?"

The bitter little silvery laugh, so seldom heard, rang out across