"I thought all my hopes were dead, Pearl," she said with dry lips, "until you spoke, and then I saw myself years ago, when I came out of school. Life was as rosy and promising, and the future as bright to me then as it is to you now. But I got married young—we were brought up to think if we did not get married—we were rather disgraced, and in our little town in Ontario, men were scarce—they had all come West. So when I got a chance, I took it."
Pearl could see what a beautiful young girl she must have been, when the fires of youth burned in her eye—with her brilliant coloring and her graceful ways. But now her face had something dead about it, something missing—like a beautifully-tiled fireplace with its polished brass fittings, on whose grate lie only the embers of a fire long dead.
Pearl thought of this as she watched her. Mrs. Paine, in her agitation, pleated her muslin apron into a fan.
The tea-kettle on the stove bubbled drowsily, and there was no sound in the house but the purring of the big cat that lay on Pearl's knee.
"Life is a funny proposition, Pearl," continued Mrs. Paine, "I often think it is a conspiracy against women. We are weaker, smaller than men—we have all the weaknesses and diseases they have—and then some of our own. Marriage is a form of bondage—long-term slavery—for women."
Pearl regarded her hostess with astonished eyes. She had always known that Mrs. Paine did not look happy; but such words as these came as a shock to her romantic young heart.
"It isn't the hard work—or the pain—it isn't that—it's the uselessness of it all. Nature is so cruel, and careless. See how many seeds die—nature does not care—some will grow—the others do not matter!"
"O you're wrong, Mrs. Paine," Pearl cried eagerly; "it is not true that even a sparrow can fall to the ground and God not know it."
Mrs. Paine seemed about to speak, but checked her words. Pearl's bright face, her hopefulness, her youth, her unshaken faith in God and the world, restrained her. Let the child keep her faith!
"There is something I want to ask you, Pearl," she said, after a long pause. "You know the laws of this Province are different from what they are in Ontario."