"Hot as Hell!" said Sary Jane.
"I thought it was a little warm," said the Lady of Shalott. "Sary Jane, dear, isn't the yard down there a little—dirty?"
Sary Jane put down her needle, and looked out of the blazing, blindless window. It had always been a subject of satisfaction to Sary Jane, somewhere down below her lean shoulders and in the very teeth of the rat-trap, that the Lady of Shalott could not see out of that window. So she winked at the window, as if she would caution it to hold its burning tongue, and said never a word.
"Sary Jane, dear," said the Lady of Shalott, once more, "had you ever thought that perhaps I was a little—weaker—than I was—once?"
"I guess you can stand it if I can!" said the rat-trap.
"O, yes, dear," said the Lady of Shalott. "I can stand it if you can."
"Well, then!" said Sary Jane. But she sat and winked at the bald window, and the window held its burning tongue.
It grew hot in South Street. It grew very hot in South Street. The lean children in the attic opposite fell sick, and sat no longer in the window making faces, in the Lady of Shalott's glass.
Two more monkeys from the spring-box were carried away one ugly twilight in a cart. The purple wing that hung over the spring-box lifted to let them pass; and then fell, as if it had brushed them away.
"It has such a soft color!" said the Lady of Shalott, smiling.