c of all our hustling, hating, faithless
lives. They made their secret voiceless worship, they did their
steadfast, uninspired, unthanked, unselfish work as helpful daughters,
as nurses, as faithful servants, as the humble providences of homes.
She was almost exactly three years older than I. At first I found
no beauty in her, she was short but rather sturdy and ruddy, with
red-tinged hair, and fair hairy brows and red-brown eyes. But her
freckled hands I found, were full of apt help, her voice
carried good cheer. . . .

At first she was no more than a blue-clad, white-aproned benevolence,
that moved in the shadows behind the bed on which my old mother lay
and sank restfully to death. She would come forward to anticipate
some little need, to proffer some simple comfort, and always then
my mother smiled on her. In a little while I discovered the beauty
of that helpful poise of her woman's body, I discovered the grace
of untiring goodness, the sweetness of a tender pity, and the
great riches of her voice, of her few reassuring words and phrases.
I noted and remembered very clearly how once my mother's lean old
hand patted the firm gold-flecked strength of hers, as it went by
upon its duties with the coverlet.

"She is a good girl to me," said my mother one day. "A good girl.
Like a daughter should be. . . . I never had a daughter--really."
She mused peacefully for a space. "Your little sister died," she
said.

I had never heard of that little sister.

"November the tenth," said my mother. "Twenty-nine months and three
days. . . . I cried. I cried. That was before you came, dear. So
long ago--and I can see it now. I was a young wife then, and your
father was very kind. But I can see its hands, its dear little
quiet hands. . . . Dear, they say that now--now they will not let
the little children die."

"No, dear mother," I said. "We shall do better now."

"The club doctor could not come. Your father went twice. There
was some one else, some one who paid. So your father went on into
Swathinglea, and that man wouldn't come unless he had his fee. And
your father had changed his clothes to look more respectful and he
hadn't any money, not even his tram fare home. It seemed cruel to
be waiting there with my baby thing in pain. . . . And I can't help
thinking perhaps we might have saved her. . . . But it was like
that with the poor always in the bad old times--always. When the
doctor came at last he was angry. 'Why wasn't