The front door opens:  out we walk in pairs;
And I am so delighted with this world,
That suddenly has grown, being new washed,
To such a smiling, clean, and thankful world,
And with a tender face shining through tears,
Looks up into the sometime lowering sky,
That has been angry, but is reconciled,
And just forgiving her, that I,—­that I,—­
O, I forget myself:  what matters how! 
And then I hear (but always kindly said)
Some words that pain me so,—­but just, but true;
’For if your place in this establishment
Be but subordinate, and if your birth
Be lowly, it the more behooves,—­well, well,
No more.  We see that you are sorry.’  Yes! 
I am always sorry THEN; but now,—­O, now,
Here is a bight more beautiful than all.”

“And did they scold her, then, my pretty one? 
And did she want to be as wise as they,
To bear a bucklered heart and priggish mind? 
Ay, you may crow; she did! but no, no, no,
The night-time will not let her, all the stars
Say nay to that,—­the old sea laughs at her. 
Why, Gladys is a child; she has not skill
To shut herself within her own small cell,
And build the door up, and to say, ’Poor me! 
I am a prisoner’; then to take hewn stones,
And, having built the windows up, to say,
’O, it is dark! there is no sunshine here;
There never has been.’”

Strange! how very strange! 
A woman passing Gladys with a babe,
To whom she spoke these words, and only looked
Upon the babe, who crowed and pulled her curls,
And never looked at Gladys, never once. 
“A simple child,” she added, and went by,
“To want to change her greater for their less;
But Gladys shall not do it, no, not she;
We love her—­don’t we?—­far too well for that.”

Then Gladys, flushed with shame and keen surprise,
“How could she be so near, and I not know? 
And have I spoken out my thought aloud? 
I must have done, forgetting.  It is well
She walks so fast, for I am hungry now,
And here is water cantering down the cliff,
And here a shell to catch it with, and here
The round plump buns they gave me, and the fruit. 
Now she is gone behind the rock.  O, rare
To be alone!” So Gladys sat her down,
Unpacked her little basket, ate and drank,
Then pushed her hands into the warm dry sand,
And thought the earth was happy, and she too
Was going round with it in happiness,
That holiday.  “What was it that she said?”
Quoth Gladys, cogitating; “they were kind,
The words that woman spoke.  She does not know! 
’Her greater for their less,’—­it makes me laugh,—­
But yet,” sighed Gladys, “though it must be good
To look and to admire, one should not wish
To steal THEIR virtues, and to put them on,
Like feathers from another wing; beside,
That calm, and that grave consciousness of worth,
When all is said, would little suit with me,
Who am not worthy.  When our thoughts are born,
Though they be good and humble, one should mind
How they are reared, or some will go astray
And shame their mother.  Cain and Abel both
Were only once removed from innocence. 
Why did I envy them?  That was not good;
Yet it began with my humility.”