Bret Harte's choice bits, p. 20

16 BRET harte's CHOICE BITS.

of her own sex. Dissolute, abandoned, and irre¬

claimable, she was yet suffering a martyrdom hard

enough to bear even when veiled by sympathising

womanhood, but now terrible in her loneliriess.

The primal curse had come to her in that original

isolation which must have made the punishment

of the first transgression so dreadful. It was,

perhaps, part of the expiation of her sin, that, at a

moment when she most lacked her sex's intuitive

tenderness and care, she met only the half-contemp¬

tuous faces of her masculine associates. Yet a few

of the spectators were, I think, touched by her

sufferings. Sandy Tipton thought it was " rough

on Sal," and, in the contemplation of her condition,

for a moment rose superior to the fact that he had

an ace and two bowers in his sleeve.

It will be seen, also, that the situation was novel.

Deaths were by no means uncommon in Roaring

Camp, but a birth was a new thing. People had

been dismissed the camp effectively, finally, and

with no possibility of return ; but this was the first

time that anybody had been introduced ab initio.

Hence the excitement.

" You go in there. Stumpy," said a prominent

citizen known as " Kentuck," addressing one of the

loungers. " Go in there, and see what you kin do.

You've had experience in them things."

Perhaps there was a fitness in the selection.