Page:Comin' Thro' the Rye (1898).djvu/217

Rh two peas, and I think as green; and the only difference that I can discern between them is that one has a permanent hitch in her nose, and the other has not. They are neither very young, nor very old: they hover on that chilly neutral-grey border-land that divides the young maid from the old one; they look as if they had never had a lover, or a sorrow, or a joy, or a hope, or a disappointment. I wonder what it feels like to have a torpid existence like that? Even the poor flies get wakened up and warmed by the sun sometimes.

A stolid British matron sits on my right, with a red account-book in her hand filled with rows of figures that should make her eyes ache. If ever I have a husband, I will take care of two things that he keeps the accounts and orders the dinner.

The only cheerful people present are two fat clergymen—comfortably dressed, happy, well-shaven souls, who are not only pleasantly provided for in this world, but are blessedly safe for the next. One is telling the other the latest bon mot of a certain witty bishop, and I strain my ears to catch the pregnant syllables: but he laughs so much over it, that the point is lost in successions of chuckles, and I feel unreasonably though distinctly cross. The other man says, "Hey?" at every tenth word. It strikes me he must spend a good half of his waking existence in saying, "Hey?"

What a small insignificant person a spinster travelling alone looks! She is a poor creature, compared with the "married woman," and all her smart paraphernalia, the footman, the lady's maid, the nurse, the baby, the husband. I place him last of all, advisedly; for, though he provided all the rest, he is often the meekest and most unimportant of all.

No wonder men call themselves lords of creation! It is not for what they are, but for what they give, that they are of so much importance all good things come to a woman through a plain gold circlet, apparently!