Page:Minnie's Bishop and Other Stories (1915).djvu/70

 down among the boulders of the upper beach to bring water from a brackish well.

She would have lost the fresh beauty of girlhood very speedily and ceased after a little while to care greatly that her hands were rough, her face weather-beaten and her figure ungainly. The other life, the one she has chosen, is better than that.

And yet I wonder! Onnie would have borne children. Year after year, for many years perhaps, a fresh baby would have ousted the old one from its cradle. Boys and girls would have clung about her skirts and clamoured in her ears. Slapped and kissed, scolded and caressed, they would have been a plague and a joy to her. She would have watched them grow to be men and women brave and strong. She would have known that life, the great insistent need of the universe, was going forth from her.

Which, after all, is best? Which achievement gives most satisfaction to look back on after all is over. I said good-bye to Onnie—still wondering.