"Poor Lois!" she thought,
with an eager pity, forgetting her own intolerable future for the
moment, as she gathered up some breakfast and went with it down the
lane. Morning had come; great heavy bars of light fell from behind the
hills athwart the banks of gray and black fog; there was shifting,
uneasy, obstinate tumult among the shadows; they did not mean to yield
to the coming dawn. The hills, the massed woods, the mist opposed their
immovable front, scornfully. Margaret did not notice the silent contest
until she reached the lane. The girl Lois, sitting in her cart, was
looking, quiet, attentive, at the slow surge of the shadows, and the
slower lifting of the slanted rays.
"T' mornin' comes grand here, Miss Marg'et!" she said, lowering her
voice.
Margaret said nothing in reply; the morning, she thought, was gray
and cold, as her own life. She stood leaning on the low cart;
some strange sympathy drew her to this poor wretch, dwarfed,
alone in the world,--some tie of equality, which the odd childish
face, nor the quaint air of content about the creature, did
not lessen. Even when Lois shook down the patched skirt of her flannel
frock straight, and settled the heaps of corn and tomatoes about her,
preparatory for a start, Margaret kept her hand on the side of the cart,
and walked slowly by it down the road.
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