Page:Anthony John (IA anthonyjohn00jero).pdf/280

 well. Perhaps, by help of great economy in the housekeeping, they might be able to purchase a piano, on the hire system—or would it have to be a harmonium?

She had risen. From the window, she could see the cloud of smoke beneath which the people of Millsborough moved and had their being.

Why should it seem so impossible. Her present ordered existence, mapped out from year to year, calling for neither thought nor effort, admitting of neither hope nor fear, the sheltered life of a pampered child—had not that also its dulness, its monotony? Why did rich people rent saeters in Norway, live there for months at a time on hunter's fare, doing their own cooking and cleaning—welcome the perils and hardships of mountain climbing; of big game shooting; of travels into unknown lands; choose danger, privation and toil, and call it a "holiday"? Had not she herself found the simple living and hard work of the hospital a welcome change from everlasting luxuriousness? Would the Garden of Eden have been the ideal home for men and women with brains and hands? Might not earning one's living by the sweat of one's brow be better sport?

Need those evenings after the day's work was done be of necessity so deadly? Her great din-