"It's clean," she said simply.
He took it in his big hand and it lay like a pearl and coral thing in his palm. Bella did not hear his murmured artistic ecstasies. Fairfax deftly oiled the foot, kneeling before it as at a shrine of beauty. He placed it in one of the basins and poured the plaster slowly over it, sternly bidding her to control her giggles and her "ouches" as it could not harm.
"Keep perfectly still. Do not budge till the plaster sets."
"Oh, it's setting already," she told him, "hard! You won't break off my foot, Cousin Antony?"
"Nonsense."
Whilst the cast set he recited for them "St. Agnes's Eve," a great favourite with the children, beyond their comprehension, but their hearts nevertheless stirred to the melody. As Fairfax leant down to break the model Bella helped him bravely.
"Now, might I put on my stocking, Cousin Antony?"
He had been pouring the warm plaster into the mould and had forgotten her, and was reproached.
The twilight gathered and made friends with the storm as they waited for the cast to harden. Old Ann came in and lighted the gas above the group on the old divan.
"Be the hivenly powers! Mr. Fairfax, ye've here a power of a dirt."