Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 1).djvu/264

 She had not been thankful because she had not understood. As the child does not comprehend his cost to the mother who bore the burden of him, so she had never understood what she owed to the woman who had sheltered her nameless life.

She had taken all that was about her, as children do, unthinkingly; they do not ask why the sun shines, why the bread is there, why the roof is between their heads and the winter storm; these things are so; they accept them and do not question nor wonder. She had not been thankless; she had only been a child. Now she was a child no more. She had looked on death, and it had left her desolate.

She had made her mind up to go and dwell with those whom she had called her own people, in the twilight of the earth, underneath the grass and canes. She was sure that they would not repulse her.

She preferred their mute mercy to the clamouring greed of the living. What appalled her was, not that she was penniless, but that she was alone.

She went across the moor in the strong unchanging sunlight that, as the day grew apace, ceased to have even the relief of any