Perhaps Esther's commiseration of her sisters' narrow opportunities was,
so far as it related to Dot, a little unnecessary, for indeed Dot's
ambitions were not social. By nature shy and meditative, and with her
religious bias, had she been born into a Catholic family, she might not
improbably have found the world well lost in a sisterhood. The Puritan
conscience had an uncomfortable preponderance in the deep places of her
nature, and, far down in her soul, like her father, she would ask
herself if pleasure could be the end of life--was there not something
serious each of us could and ought to do, to justify his place in the
world? Were we not all under some mysterious solemn obligation to do
something, however little, in return for life?
Mat, on the other hand, had no such scruples. She was more like Esther
in nature, with a touch of cynicism curling her dainty lip, arising,
perhaps, from an early divination that she was to lack Esther's
opportunities. Perhaps it was because she was the pessimist--the quite
cheerful pessimist--of the family, that she was by far the cleverest and
most industrious at the housework.
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