In our talk, which is sometimes full of the innocent realism of
childhood, she is always pathetically eager to say the right thing
and be engaging.
One evening I found her trying to light a fire in the little side
room of her cottage, where there is an ordinary fireplace. I went in
to help her and showed her how to hold up a paper before the mouth
of the chimney to make a draught, a method she had never seen. Then
I told her of men who live alone in Paris and make their own fires
that they may have no one to bother them. She was sitting in a heap
on the floor staring into the turf, and as I finished she looked up
with surprise.
'They're like me so,' she said; 'would anyone have thought that!'
Below the sympathy we feel there is still a chasm between us.
'Musha,' she muttered as I was leaving her this evening, 'I think
it's to hell you'll be going by and by.'
Occasionally I meet her also in the kitchen where young men go to
play cards after dark and a few girls slip in to share the
amusement.
