“Why, I don’t know,” said Temperance, “I was sure I heard a noise, but I couldn’t see anything when I got up. Did you hear anything, Mr. Martin?”
“Not I,” said Sidney, “but I was so busy with my own thoughts that you might have fired a cannon at my ear and I would not have heard it.” He looked at Vashti; her down-drooped eyes were fixed upon her plate; suddenly he exclaimed:
“What have you done to your hand? It’s burned!”
“Yes,” she said quietly, “after I blew out my lamp last night I knocked the chimney off. I caught it against my side with the back of my hand, that burned it.”
“My!” said Mabella. “I would have let it break.”
Vashti smiled, and suddenly raised her eyes to Sidney.
“A little pain is good for me, I think. It makes one know things are real.”
“But the reality is sometimes sweeter than the dream,” he said, tenderly.
She let her eyes fall in maidenly manner. It was as if she had spoken. This woman’s most ordinary movements proclaimed the eloquence of gesture.
“You must have been up early,” said Mabella to Sidney.