Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 1).djvu/110

 But she had no boat; Joconda could not give her one; and when it was stormy weather the men put her back, and would not let her go with them, because she was a child, because she would be a woman. Yes; she understood as she thought of the boat; she understood that it was very bad to be a woman.

Joconda broke in on her thoughts.

'Wild bird of sea and cloud,' she said more tenderly than she had ever spoken, 'you are a stormy petrel, but there may come a storm too many—and I am old. I have done my best, but that is little. If you were a lad, one would not be so uneasy. I suppose the good God knows best—if one could be sure of that—I am a hard-working woman, and I have done no great sin that I know of, but up in heaven they never take any thought of me. When I was young, I asked them at my marriage altar to help me, and when my boys were born, I did the same, but they never noticed; my man was drowned, and my beautiful boys got the fever, and sickened one by one and died: that was all I got. Priests say it is best; priests are not mothers.'

She was silent awhile, her thoughts tra-