Well, so it would--but good comes quick for
them as begins callin' it. It's been quick for ME," drawing her thread
through the needle's eye triumphantly. "Lor', yes, me legs is better--
me luck's better--people's better. Bless yer, yes!"

"It's true," said Glad; "she gets on somehow. Things comes. She never
wants no drink. Me now," she applied to Miss Montaubyn, "if I took it
up same as you--wot'd come to a gal like me?"

"Wot ud yer want ter come?" Dart saw that in her mind was an absolute
lack of any premonition of obstacle. "Wot'd yer arst fer in yer own
mind?"

Glad reflected profoundly.

"Polly," she said, "she wants to go 'ome to 'er mother an' to the
country. I ain't got no mother an' wot I 'ear of the country seems like
I'd get tired of it. Nothin' but quiet an' lambs an' birds an' things
growin.' Me, I likes things goin' on. I likes people an' 'and organs
an' 'buses. I'd stay 'ere--same as I told YOU," with a jerk of her hand
toward Dart. "An' do things in the court--if I 'ad a bit o' money. I
don't want to live no gay life when I 'm a woman. It's too 'ard. Us
pore uns ends too bad. Wisht I knowed I could get on some 'ow."

"Good 'll come," said Miss Montaubyn. "Just you say the same as me
every mornin'--'Good's fillin' the world, an' some of it's comin' to me.
It's bein' sent--an' I 'm goin' to meet it. It's comin'--it's
comin'.'" She bent forward and touched the girl's shoulder with her
astonishing eyes alight. "Bless yer, wot's in my room's in yours; Lor',
yes."

Glad's eyes stared into hers, they became mysteriously, almost
awesomely, astonishing also.

"Is it?" she breathed in a hushed voice.

"Yes, Lor', yes! When yer get up in the mornin' you just stand still
an' ARST it. 'Speak, Lord,' ses you; 'speak, Lord--'"

"Thy servant 'eareth," ended Glad's hushed speech. "Blimme, but I 'm
goin' to try it!"

Perhaps the brain of her saw it still as an incantation, perhaps the
soul of her, called up strangely out of the dark and still new-born and
blind and vague, saw it vaguely and half blindly as something else.

Dart was wondering which of these things were true.

"We've never been expectin' nothin' that's good," said Miss Montaubyn.
"We 're allus expectin' the other. Who isn't? I was allus expectin'
rheumatiz an' 'unger an' cold an' starvin' old age. Wot was you lookin'
for?" to Dart.

He looked down on the floor and answered heavily.

"Failing brain--failing life--des