be pitied, they have been weakened and left. We wear the bandages, but our
limbs have not grown to them; we know that we are compressed, and chafe
against them.

"But what does it help? A little bitterness, a little longing when we are
young, a little futile searching for work, a little passionate striving for
room for the exercise of our powers,--and then we go with the drove. A
woman must march with her regiment. In the end she must be trodden down or
go with it; and if she is wise she goes.

"I see in your great eyes what you are thinking," she said, glancing at
him; "I always know what the person I am talking to is thinking of. How is
this woman who makes such a fuss worse off than I? I will show you by a
very little example. We stand here at this gate this morning, both poor,
both young, both friendless; there is not much to choose between us. Let
us turn away just as we are, to make our way in life. This evening you
will come to a farmer's house. The farmer, albeit you come alone on foot,
will give you a pipe of tobacco and a cup of coffee and a bed. If he has
no dam to build and no child to teach, tomorrow you can go on your way,
with a friendly greeting of the hand. I, if I come to the same place
tonight, will have strange questions asked me, strange glances cast on me.
The Boer-wife will shake her head and give me food to eat with the Kaffers,
and a right to sleep with the dogs. That would be the first step in our
progress--a very little one, but every step to the end would repeat it. We
were equals once when we lay new-born babes on our nurses' knees. We will
be equals again when they tie up our jaws for the last sleep!"

Waldo looked in wonder at the little quivering face; it was a glimpse into
a world of passion and feeling wholly new to him.