"'Perhaps she reminds you of your own,' I continued at a venture, anxious only to make her talk.
"A faint curiosity came to her worn face.
"'It's funny you should say so--just as if you had seen our Dot. So like--so wonderfully like. Sometimes it seems as if she had come back again, yet it is five-and-twenty years since I lost her.'
"'That is a long time.'
"'A long, long time to remember, isn't it? And I've had so many and lost so many. But I never forgot Dot--she was so pretty! Ah, well! I daresay it would have been against her, poor lamb. "Favour is deceitful and beauty is vain."'
"She lulled the child on her lap to deeper slumber with a gentle rocking. It seemed to me as if she were soothing regret to sleep also.
"'She had curls like this one?' I remarked, cruelly anxious to keep her to the subject.
"Once more she looked at me with that oddly familiar bewilderment.
"'I can't think where I've seen you before,' she said after a pause. 'I never met you in those old days, did I? Ah, well! I've lived so long and travelled so far that I can't remember it all. Sometimes I seem to forget everything except what I see--and Dot. I never forget her. Only last month I was coming down the river not far from the place where the little dear shot herself--she was playing with her father's revolver, you know--and I seemed to go through it all again. Her father--he left the Salt soon after--was downright vexed with me because I fretted so. He said no good could come of remembering grief so long. But I don't know. I've heard it said that there is only so much sorrow and happiness in the world; then if one person gets a lot there must be less trouble left for others. I've held on to my share anyhow, though maybe, as father says, it isn't any good.'
"Her tired eyes sought the distant sandhills wistfully and her mouth trembled a little.