The revulsion indicated by Annabel's attitude was a sufficient answer. Persis crossed to the cot-bed and sat down. If there was a person on earth she cordially detested, it was Annabel Sinclair, yet the conviction that this poor counterfeit of a woman was in need of strength and sympathy was sufficient to thrust that old dislike into the background. "I guess to-day's been pretty trying to your nerves, Mis' Sinclair. But you'll feel better if you take a look at this nice boy. I've seen a good many of 'em first and last, and I told Diantha I'd never set eyes on a finer baby." A curious distortion of Annabel's face broke off Persis' eulogy. "Are you feeling sick, Mis' Sinclair?" she asked in real alarm, thinking that she would never have given Annabel credit for this excess of material solicitude. "Sick? Yes, I'm sick of everything. I'm glad that child's a boy. Those people that drown the girl babies like kittens, are in the right of it. No woman ought to live beyond thirty." "Some of us," remarked Persis, recovering herself with difficulty, "would have missed a good deal at that rate." But her lips curled slightly. She was beginning to understand and to acquit herself of past injustice. Annabel had reached a point where speech was a necessity. For years, she had returned Persis' dislike with the added venom of a small nature. But at this moment, when an outpouring of confidence seemed essential, she knew there was no one to whom she could speak so freely as to this woman she had hated. "Life's cruel, cruel! It promises us women everything. And then it cheats us and tricks us and takes away all that it gave, one thing after another. It's like bleeding to death, losing your beauty little by little, fighting your hardest and knowing you've got to be beaten in the end. When I was a child in bed I used to think I heard footsteps coming along the hall, slow and stealthy, and I'd lie there trembling and quaking, afraid to open my eyes. That's the way I've been listening to old age, creeping on me--for the last ten years." "And if only you'd got your courage up to opening your eyes when you were a little, trembly thing, scared of those footsteps, like enough all you'd have seen beside your bed was your mother smiling down on you." Annabel looked at the speaker without replying. Her look offered little encouragement for Persis to continue, but she needed no such incentive. "You talk about life's being cruel. Why, you poor little soul, you don't know what life's like. You've never given it a chance. You haven't played fair." For years Persis had acknowledged to a desire to give Annabel Sinclair "a good talking to." On various occasions she had uttered truths that had cut like knives. She had the same truths to utter now but the spirit had altered.