48
every three pieces she left one aside for Sarah, and the girl going
down into her room in the dusk found them lying across the bed.
Martha's quiet determination to abide by her resolve, with neither
recrimination nor bitterness succeeded in reducing her daughter to an
anguish of spirit which in momenta of weakness she thought almost too
much to pay for her new life, Neither encouraged by an air cf martyrdom
on her mothers part, nor possessing herself that characteristic which
in revolt and despair casts the whole burden of shame on the person who
occasioned it, the girl was tormented by a superstitious belief that
some day she would have to pay for her actions. She was fortified only
by a secret stubborn shame and a hatred of subordination and its drudgery.
Yet when at last Mrs Gomartin, with her few goods boxed and basketed, sat
in the springcart, one backward glance would have brought her daughter
into her arms. The old woman never looked round, and Sarah through
tear-blinded eyes, watched the small bowed figure nod and lurch beside
Hamilton as they drove away.
