and preach till you go black in the face, and still I'll hate it more
than ever. If I have to do it all my life, and if I'm cursed with a long
life, I'll hate it just as much at the end as I do now. I'm sure it's not
any wish of mine that I'm born with inclinations for better things. If I
could be born again, and had the designing of myself, I'd be born the
lowest and coarsest-minded person imaginable, so that I could find plenty
of companionship, or I'd be born an idiot, which would be better still."

"Sybylla!" said my mother in a shocked tone. "It is a wonder God doesn't
strike you dead; I never heard--"

"I don't believe there is a God," I said fiercely, "and if there is, He's
not the merciful being He's always depicted, or He wouldn't be always
torturing me for His own amusement."

"Sybylla, Sybylla! That I should ever have nurtured a child to grow up
like this! Do you know that--"

"I only know that I hate this life. I hate it, I hate it, I hate it," I
said vehemently.

"Talk about going out to earn your own living! Why, there's not a woman
living would have you in her house above a day. You are a perfect
she-devil. Oh God!" And my mother began to cry. "What have I done to be
cursed with such a child? There is not another woman in the district with
such a burden put upon her. What have I done? I can only trust that my
prayers to God for you will soften your evil heart."

"If your prayers are answered, it's more than ever mine were," I retorted.