Читать книгу Susan Spray онлайн

81 страница из 108

But Tamar, though a year younger, at once saw the hamper of petticoats. When Susan, as they tramped, told her of her ambitions, she mocked:

"How can you be a Prophet?—you're näun but a girl."

"Girls can be prophets, surelye."

"How can they be? Men will never listen to a woman."

"They will, indeed. I'll make them listen."

"You can't—a woman's nought, except to be a man's wife."

"I'll never be a man's wife."

"You'll have to be, and when you're like Mam, keeping house and cooking and minding children——"

"I'll never do none of these things."

She coloured angrily, for this was the second attempt to weigh down her dream with the burden of housekeeping.

"You'll have to do them," repeated Tamar. "All women have to marry and keep house and have children."

"Women such as you may have to, but not the woman I'll be."

She shrugged her shoulders, indignantly, and went to walk on the other side of the lane. She despised Tamar for some reason she could not quite understand, and she despised her all the more when, looking across at her, she saw that she was smiling secretly.