’It is all very well to laugh, but, when one comes to think of it, it is very sad indeed to see seven human lives wasting away, a whole family of girls eating their hearts out in despair, having nothing to do but to pop about from one tennis-party to another, and chatter to each other or their chaperons of this girl and that who does not seem to be getting married.  You are very lucky indeed, Alice—­luckier than you think you are, and you are quite right to stick out and do the best you can for yourself in spite of what your people say.  It is all very well for them to talk, but they don’t know what we suffer:  we are not all made alike, and the wants of one are not the wants of another.  I dare say you never thought much about that sort of thing; but as I say, we are not all made alike.  Every woman, or nearly every one, wants a husband and a home, and it is only natural she should, and if she doesn’t get them the temptations she has to go through are something frightful, and if we make the slightest slip the whole world is down upon us.  I can talk to you, Alice, because you know what I have gone through.  You have been a very good friend to me—­had it not been for you I don’t know what would have become of me.  You didn’t reproach me, you were kind and had pity for me; you are a sensible person, and I dare say you understood that I wasn’t entirely to blame.  And I wasn’t entirely to blame; the circumstances we girls live under are not just—­no, they are not just.  We are told that we must marry a man with at least a thousand a year, or remain spinsters; well, I should like to know where the men are who have a thousand a year, and some of us can’t remain spinsters.  Oh! you are very lucky indeed to have found a husband, and to be going away to a home of your own.  I wish I were as lucky as you, Alice, indeed I do, for then there would be no excuse, and I could be a good woman.  You won’t hate me too much, will you, Alice?  I have made a lot of good resolutions, and they shall be kept some day.’

‘Some day!  You don’t mean that you are again—­’

’No; but I’ve a lover.  It is dreadfully sinful, and if I died I should go straight to hell.  I know all that.  I wish I were going to be married, like you!  For then one is out of temptation.  Haven’t you a kind word for me?  Won’t you kiss me and tell me you don’t despise me?’

’Of course I’ll kiss you, May; and I am sure that one of these days you will—­’

Alice could say no more; and the girls kissed and cried in each other’s arms, and the group was a sad allegory of poor humanity’s triumph, and poor humanity’s more than piteous failures.  At last they went downstairs, and in the hall May showed Alice the beautiful wedding-present she had bought her, and the girl did not say that she had sold her hunter to buy it.

XXIX

At Brookfield on the morning of December 3, ’84, the rain fell persistently in the midst of a profound silence.  The trees stood stark in the grey air as if petrified; there was not wind enough to waft the falling leaf; it fell straight as if shotted.