She asked them if they
thought ten shillings a day and food would be enough. She asked it
hesitatingly, afraid lest she were making them an impossibly frugal
offer. She was relieved at the cry of assent; but it was followed
after a moment by murmurs from the married women, when they had had
time to reflect, that it was unfair to pay the raw young ones at the
same rate as themselves. Priscilla however turned a deaf ear to their
murmurings. "The girls may not," she said, raising her hand to impose
silence, "be able to get through as much as you do in a day, but
they'll be just as tired when evening comes. Certainly I shall give
them the same wages." She made them draw lots as to who should begin,
and took the winner home with her then and there; she too, though the
day was far spent, was to have her ten shillings. "What, have you
forgotten your New Testaments?" Priscilla cried, when more murmurs
greeted this announcement. "Don't you remember the people who came at
the eleventh hour to labour in the vineyard and got just the same as
the others? Why should I try to improve on parables?" And there was
something about Priscilla, an air, an authority, that twisted the
women of Symford into any shape of agreement she chose.
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