Page:The Yellow Book - 13.djvu/309

Rh Katharine, who was never original, but who threw down her commonplaces and let them ring.

Good sense, good sense.

Hadn't even Lucy nearly enough of it? Wasn't she earning her own living? Wasn't she saving a few pounds for her own enjoyable old age? Wasn't she frugal and quiet and hard-working, as any woman of the working classes? And this discontent that surged within her when she felt strong, that dragged at her spirits and clouded her brain when she was tired it was just unreasoning womanish folly, and Katharine would say indigestion. Was it? Very well.

To-night she would not make the usual effort to throw it off. "I mustn't, I mustn't," she had always thought; "I shan't be fit for my work to-morrow." And resolutely she had turned and interested herself in some light book. To-night, in the leaden dulness, rebellion stirred.

"Good heavens! Haven't I even the right to be wretched!"

Her work constantly overtaxed her strength. Economy prevented her from getting proper rest in her holidays. But she was sensible, and rested all she could, so that although always tired and draggled, she might not be noticeably so, and lose her post.

That was the comfort common sense gave.

She looked forward. She would never get a head mistress-ship, she had neither the acquirements nor the personality; and year after year young girls came up with their degrees and their inexperience, and after a time—it was years yet—but after a time, perhaps before she was forty, she would be told she was too old to teach.

Then she would fall back on her savings. If she went on limiting her pleasures at the present rate they might be £50 by that time. Her prospects looked dark as the river.

Rh