The Importance of Tears

Brydie thought of Patrick Grady seeing in her mind his pale, thin face. She knew at once that Mrs Griffin was arranging to marry him. It was a natural outcome. If the weight of circumstance hadn't intervened, she wouldn't be standing in a wayside ballroom mourning the marriage of a roadmender that she didn't love. For a moment she thought she might cry in her life on the farm and in the house there was no place for tears. Tears were a luxury like flowers would be in the fields where the man-golds grow or fresh whitewash in the scullery. Her father had more right to weep. In the ballroom of romance