Stoddard looked at her; she was thinner than she had been, and otherwise
showed the marks of misery and of factory life. The sight was almost
intolerable to him. Poor girl, she herself was suffering cruelly enough
beneath the same yoke she had helped to lay on the children.
"Are you really giving up your studies entirely?" he asked, in what he
tried to make a very kindly voice. He laid his hand on the package of
books. "I wonder if you aren't making a mistake, Johnnie. You look as
though you were working too hard. Some things are worth more than money
and getting on in the world."
Johnnie shook her head. For the moment words were beyond her. Then she
managed to say in a fairly composed tone.
"There isn't any other way for me. I think some times, Mr. Stoddard,
when a body is born to a hard life, all the struggling and trying just
makes it that much harder. Maybe when the children get a little older
I'll have more chance."
The statement was wistfully, timidly made; yet to Gray Stoddard it
seemed a brazen defence of her present course. It pierced him that she
on whose nobility of nature he could have staked his life, should
justify such action.
"Yes," he said with quick bitterness, "they might be able to earn more,
of course, as time goes on." It was a cruel speech between two people
who had discussed this feature of industrial life as these had; even
Stoddard had no idea how cruel.
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