wly in the grey
dawn light along the level road. They passed the very milk-bush behind
which so many years before the old German had found the Kaffer woman.
But their thoughts were not with him that morning: they were the
thoughts of the young, that run out to meet the future, and labour in
the present. At last he touched her arm.

"What is it?"

"I feared you had gone to sleep and might be jolted out," he said; "you
sat so quietly."

"No; do not talk to me; I am not asleep;" but after a time she said
suddenly: "It must be a terrible thing to bring a human being into the
world."

Waldo looked round; she sat drawn into the corner, her blue cloud wound
tightly about her, and she still watched the horses' feet. Having no
comment to offer on her somewhat unexpected remark, he merely touched up
his horses.

"I have no conscience, none," she added; "but I would not like to bring
a soul into this world. When it sinned and when it suffered something
like a dead hand would fall on me--'You did it, you, for your own
pleasure you created this thing! See your work!' If it lived to be
eighty it would always hang like a millstone round my neck, have the
right to demand good from me, and curse me for its sorrow. A parent is
only like to God--if his work turns out bad, so much the worse for him;
he dare not wash his hands of it. Time and years can never bring the day
when you can say to your child: 'Soul, what have I to do with you?'"

Waldo said dreamingly:

"It is a marvellous thing that one soul should have power to cause
another."

She heard the words as she heard the beating of the horses' hoofs; her
thoughts ran on in their own line.

"They say, 'God sends the little babies.' Of all the dastardly revolting
lies men tell to suit themselves, I hate that most. I suppose my father
said so when he knew he was dying of consumption, and my mother when she
knew she had nothing to support me on, and they created me to feed like
a dog from stranger hands. Men do not say God sends the books, or the
newspaper articles, or the machines they make; and then sigh, and shrug
their shoulders and say they can't help it. Why do they say so about
other things? Liars! 'God sends the little babies!'" She struck her foot
fretfully against the splashboard. "The small children say so earnestly.
They touch the little stranger reverently who has just come from God's
far country, and they peep about the room to see if not one white
feather has d