Page:The Night Born (London,1913).djvu/28

"'There was no meaning in anything,' she said. 'What was it all about? Why was I born? Was that all the meaning of life—just to work and work and be always tired?—to go to bed tired and to wake up tired, with every day like every other day unless it was harder?' She had heard talk of immortal life from the gospel sharps, she said, but she could not reckon that what she was doing was a likely preparation for her immortality.

"But she still had her dreams, though more rarely. She had read a few books—what, it is pretty hard to imagine. Seaside Library novels most likely; yet they had been food for fancy. 'Sometimes," she said, 'when I was that dizzy from the heat of the cooking that if I did n't take a breath of fresh air I'd faint, I'd stick my head out of the kitchen window and close my eyes and see most wonderful things. All of a sudden I'd be traveling down a country road, and everything clean and quiet, no dust, no dirt; just streams ripplin' down sweet meadows, and lambs playing, breezes blowing the breath of flowers, and soft sunshine over everything; and lovely cows lazying knee-deep in quiet pools, and young girls bathing in a curve of stream all white and slim and