"Touch it off," she said, with a disproportioned recklessness. "There's the matches on the mantel-tree."
The cap'n did it, kneeling to adjust the sticks more nicely; and when one fell forward with the burning of the kindling, lifted it and laid it back solicitously. Then with a turkey-wing he swept up the hearth, its specklessness invaded by a rolling bit of coal, put the wing in place, and stood looking down at what seemed to be his own handiwork.
"There!" said he.
He took the big armchair by the hearth, and Mariana drew her little rocker to the other corner. She seated herself in it, her hands rather tensely folded, and the cap'n regarded her mildly.
"Ain't you goin' to sew?" he inquired.
"Why, no," said Mariana, "I dunno 's I be. I dunno 's I feel like sewin' all the time."
"Well, I dunno 's there's any law to make a woman set an' sew," the cap'n ruminated. "Sewin' or knittin', either. Only, I've got so used to seein' you with a piece o' work in your hands, didn't look hardly nat'ral not to." He regarded her again with his kindly stare. "Mariana," said he, "you look like a different creatur'. What is 't's got hold of you?"
"Nothin', I guess," said Mariana. "Maybe I'm mad."
"Mad? What ye mad about?"
"Oh, I dunno. I guess I'm just mad in general. Nothin' particular, as I see."