"Some guardian angel seems to hover around us," said Michael Sunlocks, "to give us everything that we can wish for."
The joy in his blind face brought smiles into the face of Greeba, but her heart was heavy for all that. To live within hourly sight of love, yet never to share it, was to sit at a feast and eat nothing. To hear his voice, yet never to answer it, to see his face, yet never to touch it with the lips that hungered to kiss it, was an ordeal more terrible than any woman's heart could bear. Should she not speak? Might she not reveal herself? Not yet, not yet! But how long, oh, how long?
In the heat of her impatience she could not quite restrain herself, and though she dare not speak, she sang. It was on the Sunday after the organ came, when all the people at Grimsey were at church, in their strong odor of fish and sea fowl, to hear the strange new music. Michael Sunlocks played it, and when the people sang Greeba also joined them. Her voice was low at first, but she soon lost herself and then it rose above the other voices. Suddenly the organ stopped, and she was startled to see the blind face of her husband turning in her direction.
Later the same day she heard Sunlocks say to the priest, "Who was the lady who sang?"
"Why, that was my good housekeeper," said the priest.
"And did you say that she had lost her husband?" said Sunlocks.
"Yes, poor thing, and she is a foreigner, too," said the priest.
"Did you say a foreigner?" said Sunlocks.
"Yes, and she has a child left with her also," said the priest.
"A child?" said Sunlocks. And then after a pause he added, with more indifference, "Poor girl! poor girl!"