Reginald, the boy, was clerking downtown, and going to "the Tech" (still down on College Street in those days). The delicate color on the oval cheek deepened as she told me he had taken a scholarship in mathematics "at home" just before they sailed.
Louise, the fifteen-year-old girl, was in service, but only during the day. Her father or brother went for her every evening. The two younger ones were still going to school.
These were the bald facts; no embellishment, no explanation, no appeal. She was incapable, you realized at once, of the shiftiness, the heightened coloring, the subterfuge, that smaller natures resort to in such situations. Here was one who knew only how to bear, not to rebel. Her majestic calm silenced your own whimperings over the injustices of fate. You felt the invincible dignity of suffering silently borne.
Gradually a sort of unspoken understanding established itself between us. I took her situation for granted as if it were quite the natural thing, and it seemed to me she slowly began to lean back somewhat upon my friendliness. I may have fancied this, for there was not the slightest commitment of herself even
