He clapped his hand over his mouth and heard Sally say "Fule!" under her breath; but his mistress nodded and bid him go on his way.
"You may be right; but take no more eggs from the birds."
So Mr. Collins got himself out of sight to the tune of a reprimand from Sally that made his ears tingle.
"You gert, clumsy-mouthed gawk! To utter such a speech an' tellin' that stuff to her, an' go mumblin' on, like a bumble-bee in a foxglove; an' end up so! Not the sense of a sheep you ain't got!"
She tore off his gift and stamped on the blown shells, while he merely stood and rolled his great eyes wretchedly.
Elsewhere Endicott spoke to his niece.
"Strange how a chance word out of a fool's mouth will often come pat. These things—eggs—buds—babies are so little account in the great sum total. Nature's units don't trouble her. The crushed windflower will bud and blow again next year. What is a year to her? The robbed mother-bird screams for an hour, then goes on with the vital business of preserving her own life; and the robbed mother-woman—her heart aches to-day, but the pain soothes off presently as the months and years roll over first memories. We're built to forget; else the world would be a madhouse, or just one great welter of sorrow. 'Tis God's way, I judge, seldom to put upon us more than we can bear. If grief or pain's past bearing—why then the heart or something cracks and there's an end of us. But sorrow alone never killed a healthy being. I'd rather count it the torch that lights to the greatest deeds we're built to do. I hoped that a little child would draw you together—Myles and you—close, close as soil and seed; but 'tis a shared grief must do it—instead of a shared joy. Such a welding, as by fire, may last longest after all."
She sighed, touched her pony with the whip, in a sort of thoughtful caress, and turned him homewards.
"I don't know what Myles thinks about it. Either he hides all he feels to save me—or he is forgetting, as you say. It is natural that he should. No man that ever lived can know how long those nine months are to a woman. But I—I—there it is in the wind—in the rustle of the leaves. I hear it so often—the sound of a rocking cradle. I must wait until the wind sings a different song before I can be wise. Some day I shall wake up strong again—strong to acknowledge all your goodness and everybody's goodness and sympathy. I cannot yet."
The old man was moved for her. He put his hand on hers and patted it.