Читать книгу Nameless River онлайн

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She tidied her hair before the tiny mirror that hung on the kitchen wall, a small matter of passing her hands over the shining mass, for the braids were smooth, almost as they had been when she pinned them there before sun-up, and rolling down her sleeves, sat down to the table where a simple meal was steaming. She bowed her head and Mrs. Allison, her lean face gaunt with shadows of fear and apprehension, folded her hard hands and asked the customary blessing of that humble house.

Humble it was in every particular—of its scant furnishings, of its bare cleanliness which was its only adornment, of the plain food on the scoured, clothless table.

These folk who lived in it were humble, too, if one judged only by their toil-scarred hands, their weary faces.

But under the plain exterior there was something which set them apart, which defied the stamp of commonplace, which bid for the extraordinary.

This was the dominant presence of purpose in the two younger faces, the spirit of patient courage which shone naked from the two pairs of blue eyes.