“Oh, hush, woman, hush!” implored the child, her hands over her ears, her figure cowering.
“It's only the geeses. What a start you gave me!” said the maid again.
“No, no,” said Bud.
“'Methought, I heard a voice cry,
“Sleep no more! Macbeth does murder sleep,” the innocent sleep;
Sleep, that knits up the ravell'd sleave of care,
... sore labor's bath,
Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course,
Chief nourisher in life's feast—' ”
“What do you mean?” cried Kate.
“Still it cried, 'Sleep no more!' to all the house: Glamis hath murder'd sleep, and therefore Cawdor shall sleep no more; Macbeth shall sleep no more.”
The child filled each phrase with a travesty of passion; she had seen the part enacted. It was not, to be sure, a great performance. Some words were strangely mutilated; but it was a child, and she had more than a child's command of passion—she had feeling, she had heart.
“I cannot look at you!” exclaimed Kate. “You are not canny, but oh! you are—you are majestic! There was never the like of it in all the isles.”
Bell, in the darkness of the pantry, wept silently at some sense of sin in this play-acting on a Saturday night; her brother held her arm tightly. Ailie felt a vague unrest and discontent with herself, a touch of envy and of shame.
“Please collect the bouquets,” said the child, seating herself on the floor with her knees tucked high in her gown. “Are the croodles all gone?”