XXVIII.

“She looks well,” said he, somewhat absently.

“She looks well!” cried I, half-way nettled now;

Should Edith be abused, forsooth, to show

What brutes men are who lose their trust! “She looks—

For what then do you take her? for a frame,

An empty effigy of human shape,

Like what a shopman hangs his gowns upon?—

Her soul is what I spoke of,—of her soul.”

“Her soul?” he said; “may be; but I, may be,