She was
thankful to feel the presence of a friend...

"Are you one of the people, Grizel, who preach that all lots in life are
equally good?"

"I should hope not. I have some common sense."

"Oh, it's not a question of common sense; it's a question of faith.
Mrs Evans would say they were. She says every heart knows its own
bitterness, that people may appear very fortunate, but one can never
tell that there is not a skeleton locked away. And if other people are
terribly poor, or chronic invalids, or anything desperate like that, she
says that they have a temperament that makes up, or that we can only see
the present, and not life as a whole..."

"I've known,--by sight and hearsay,--many whole lives, and they've been
a martyrdom, nearly all the way through. I've known others, in the same
way, which were nearly all sunshine. Rainstorms, of course, and an
occasional squall, but never, never the whirlwind or the lightning.
Life is _not_ evened out; it's folly to pretend it. It's fifty times
harder for some than for others."

"But why? Why? It doesn't seem fair. It's _not_ always their own
fault?"

"Of course not. That's absurd. Some of the best people have the most
trials. We're bound to have our training, Cassandra, dear, and to go on
being trained till we've mastered our lessons. In that way we all fare
alike, but some of us get most of it in this life, and so have the less
to learn over there. Whatever happens to us after we die, we are not
going to be metamorphosed in a moment into perfected saints; we shall
have to go on working our way up, and oh, Cassandra, wouldn't it be a
discouraging feeling to be done with earth, and still drag about the
same old sins? How thankful we'll be when we awake, for every struggle
which had thrown off a bit of the load! That's my explanation of life's
inequalities, and it has helped me more than anything. When the
troubles came along,--there were plenty of them, my dear, in the old
days--just as a detail I was in love with Martin for eight years before
we were engaged!--I used to say to myself: `No use shirking; if you
don't fight it out to-day, you'll have to do it to-morrow.' It will
wait for you, my dear!... Set your teeth, and get it over."

Cassandra looked at her with thoughtful eyes.

"Eight years!" she repeated softly, "eight years!" and stared again,
wistful and perplexed. "You are a continual joy to me, Grizel, and a
continual surprise.--I didn't k