"Mrs. Harrington smiled.
"'No, I will not tell him,' she said kindly, 'for I think he would send you home at once if he knew how perverse you have been. You ought to remember that he never will forgive disrespect to his wife.'
"I was looking at Zillah. She half covered her face with the bed clothes, and her form writhed under them as if in pain. It might have been a sudden pang, but the look of a rattlesnake, before it springs, was in those eyes.
"Mrs. Harrington was thinking of her husband, and observed nothing.
"'That is one great proof of his love,' she said addressing me, 'and I think he does love me as few men love their wives. Have you not observed how cheerful and happy he is since I am so much better? It was only last night he told me that no woman, living or dead, ever had or ever could touch the heart entirely mine, not even if God had taken me from him. I know it seems foolish to repeat these things, but when the heart is full, one cannot always help being boastful and silly.'
"Zillah turned rudely in the bed, and I saw her hand clench itself into the blanket, tearing at the tough fabric. Mrs. Harrington, with that feeling of household trust which has no consciousness of the intelligence listening, went on as if the girl were a thousand miles off.
"'You will not mind if I am a little egotistical. It is so pleasant to be held supreme in the one heart, to feel sure that no other woman ever has or can share your influence. If there is a woman on earth that I pity, it is one who doubts the love of her husband. Thank God I have never, never had reason to know that pang. If ever two people adored each other it is us.'
"Perhaps it was a little singular that this lady should talk of the most sacred domestic relations thus freely before her own servant, but it did not seem strange to me. A child-like, affectionate woman like her, may be excused many things that persons prouder and more reticent might properly avoid; besides, the domestic habits of the south admit of very close relationship between the mistress and her servants, unknown to other regions even of our own country. I could only smile an answer to this wifely enthusiasm, but it seemed to me genuine and so sincere, that all my sympathy went with it. As for the maid, she lay perfectly still, listening, and apparently half asleep, for she had gathered the bed clothes around her, and it was only by a quick glitter that broke through her eyelashes now and then, that I could detect the interest she took in this singular conversation.
"'No, no,' said Mrs. Harrington, 'I would not tell the General for the world, how really perverse Zillah has been. She has never quite met his approbation I know, and the least thing would set him against her.'
"'Hush, she is listening,' I said.