"What ails Fanny?" she asked me the next day. "She looks like a froze pullet."
"Where is she now?"
"Making the beds."
Temperance knew well what was the matter, but was too wise to interfere. I found her, not bed-making, but in a spare room, staring at the wall. She looked at me with dry eyes, bit her lips, and folded her hands across her chest, after her old, defiant fashion. I did not speak.
"It is so," she said; "you need not tear me to pieces with your eyes, I can confess it to you, for you are as I am. I love him!" And she got up to shake her fist in my face. "My heart and brain and soul are as good as hers, and he knows it."
I could not utter a word.
"I know him as you never knew him, and have for years, since I was that starved, poor-house brat your mother took. Don't trouble yourself to make a speech about ingratitude. I know that your mother was good and merciful, and that I should have worshiped her; but I never did. Do you suppose I ever thought he was perfect, as the rest of you thought? He is full of faults. I thought he was dependant on me. He knows how I feel. Oh, what shall I do?" She threw up her arms, and dropped on the floor in a hysteric fit. I locked the door, and picked her up. "Come out of it, Fanny; I shall stay here till you do."
By dint of shaking her, and opening the window, she began to come to.
After two or three fearful laughs and shudders, she opened her eyes.
She saw my compassion, and tears fell in torrents; I cried too. The
poor girl kissed my hands; a new soul came into her face.
"Oh, Fanny, bear it as well as you can! You and I will be friends."
"Forgive me! I was always bad; I am now. If that woman comes here,
I'll stab her with Manuel's knife."