grasped her opportunity, and had made the care of the household her lot.
She still bore, what was a very different reading of her ambition, the
cares of the household. Jenny, as she grew up, had proved unruly; Pa
Blanchard's illness had made home service compulsory; and so matters
were like to remain indefinitely. Is it any wonder that Emmy was restive
and unhappy as she saw her youth going and her horizons closing upon her
with the passing of each year? If she had been wholly selfish that fact
would have been enough to sour her temper. But another, emotionally
more potent, fact produced in Emmy feelings of still greater stress. To
that fact she had this evening given involuntary expression. Now, how
would she, how could she, handle her destiny? Jenny, shrewdly thinking
as she sat with her father in the kitchen and heard Emmy open the front
door, pondered deeply as to her sister's ability to turn to account her
own sacrifice.


iv

Within a moment Alf Rylett appeared in the doorway of the kitchen, Emmy
standing behind him until he moved forward, and then closing the door
and leaning back against it. His first glance was in the direction of
Jenny, who, however, did not rise as she would ordinarily have done. He
glanced quickly at her face and from her face to her hands, so busily
engaged in manipulating the materials from which she was to re-trim her
hat. Then he looked at Pa Blanchard, whom he touched lightly and
familiarly upon the shoulder. Alf was a rather squarely built young man
of thirty, well under six feet, but not ungainly. He had a florid,
reddish complexion, and his hair was of a common but unnamed colour,
between brown and grey, curly and crisp. He was clean-shaven. Alf was
obviously one who worked with his hands: in the little kitchen he