"I hope you wont be ill again, Verry."
"I shall be," she answered with a shudder; "I need all the illnesses that come."
"As for me," I said, biting my bread and butter, "I feel well to my fingers' ends; they tingle with strength. I am elated with health."
I had not spoken the last word before I became conscious of a streak of pain which cut me like a knife and vanished; my surprise at it was so evident that she asked me what ailed me."
"Nothing."
"I never had the feeling you speak of in my finger ends," she said sadly, looking at her slender hand.
"Poor girl!"
"What has come over you, Cass? An attack of compassion? Are you meaning to leave an amiable impression with me?"
After supper Mr. Shepherd asked mother if she would go to the theater. The celebrated tragedian, Forrest, was playing; would the young ladies like to see Hamlet? We all went, and my attention was divided between Hamlet and two young men who lounged in the box door till Mr. Shepherd looked them away. Veronica laughed at Hamlet, and Temperance said it was stuff and nonsense. Veronica laughed at Ophelia, also, who was a superb, black-haired woman, toying with an elegant Spanish fan, which Hamlet in his energy broke. "It is not Shakespeare," she said.
"Has she read Shakespeare?" I asked mother.