Minnie was not good company at breakfast time; she was too much preoccupied with plans for the day. She had the obnoxious air of a very busy person trying to be polite. Immediately she had finished she hurried off to the stable, or to the cottage of Thomas Washington across the road, or about some other of her varied undertakings. Thomas Washington was a highly respectable Negro who had begun life as “hired man” for their grandfather, but who had got on very well and was now a small farmer on his own account. He was always willing to assist Minnie with expert advice, but nothing further, unless it were to be suitably recompensed. Thrift had made him independent and comfortable; thrift he worshipped and practised, and it forbade him to do anything for nothing. The gratitude of a penniless Defoe was of no value to him, he didn’t care for it. Nevertheless he was of the greatest use to Minnie, because he knew how to do everything and she being so very “handy” was able to learn from his explanations. From the bedroom window Frances used to see her talking to him over his gate, or watching him as he illustrated some point of carpentry with grave gestures, and come tramping home again, in her shapeless old hat and a big apron, to work with noble cheerfulness. Not for anything on earth would she have admitted that this cheerfulness was genuine, that it sprang from her satisfaction at finding work within her power, for the first time. At school, at home with Frances, she had, in spite of her naïve conceit, always been more or less conscious of inferiority, of being surpassed. Resolutely she covered this new satisfaction with a veil of martyrdom, made it a sort of reproach. She would never, never admit enjoying anything. Perhaps at the bottom of her queer little soul she was aware that the things she truly enjoyed were not altogether admirable--perhaps her spirit was appalled before her mind. Provided, of course, that she possessed a spirit. Mysteries forever unsolvable, these greedy, hypocritical, obtuse little beings. Stupid, without sympathy, they none the less leave their impress on the whole world. They force us to believe that their blind and ruinous maternal passion--a perverted instinct--is a sacred and mystic thing; they hold up to us their animal jealousy of one man as “love”; complacently they reveal this little beast, which one loves with rage and disgust, and cannot resist, and they call it Woman. And perhaps it is. Perhaps those others, with hearts, with brains, with souls, are not true women, only the freaks of nature.... CHAPTER FIVE I Minnie turned in at the gate, or rather, the gate posts, for there had been no gates for years. “I got a cold supper ready before I left,” she said. “Everything’s on the table. Don’t wait for me, Frankie; you must be terribly tired and hungry.” Frances was touched. “Minnie!” she said, “Really, you’re an angel!” Minnie smiled indulgently. “Silly old Frankie!” she said.