eep them quiet too. She had closed her eyes, which
ached, to close away the glare of the noon. At once she opened them, and
said:--

"It is the glass."

Sary Jane stood in the glass. Now Sary Jane, she well knew, was not in
the room that noon. She had gone out to see what she could find for
dinner. She had five cents to spend on dinner. Yet Sary Jane stood in
the glass. And in the glass, ah! what a beautiful thing!

"Flowers!" cried the Lady of Shalott aloud. But she had never seen
flowers. But neither had she seen waves. So she said, "They come as the
waves come." And knew them, and lay smiling. Ah! what a beautiful,
beautiful thing!

Sary Jane's hair was fiery and tumbled (in the glass), as if she had
walked fast and far. Sary Jane (in the glass) was winking, as she had
winked at the blazing window; as if she said to what she held in her
arms, Don't tell! And in her arms (in the glass), where the waves
were--oh! beautiful, beautiful! The Lady of Shalott lay whispering:
"Beautiful, beautiful!" She did not know what else to do. She dared not
stir. Sary Jane's lean arms (in the glass) were full of silver bells;
they hung out of a soft green shadow, like a church tower; they nodded
to and fro; when they shook, they shook out sweetness.

"Will they ring?" asked the Lady of Shalott of the little glass.

I doubt, in my own mind, if you or I, being in South Street, and seeing
a lily of the valley (in a 10 X 6 inch looking-glass) for the very first
time, would have asked so sensible a question.

"Try 'em and see," said the looking-glass. Was it the looking-glass? Or
the rat-trap? Or was it--

O, the beautiful thing! That the glass should have nothing to do with it,
after all! That Sary Jane, in flesh and blood, and tumbled hair, and
trembling, lean arms, should stand and shake an armful of church towers
and silver bells down into the Lady of Shalott's little puzzled face and
burning hands!

And that the Lady of Shalott should think that she must have got into
the glass herself, by a blunder,--as the only explanation possible of
such a beautiful thing!

"No, it isn't glass-dreams," said Sary Jane, winking at the church
towers, where they made a solemn, green shadow against the Lady of
Shalott's bent cheek. "Smell 'em and see. You can 'most stand the yard
with them round. Smell 'em and see! It ain't the glass; it's the Flower
Charity."

"The what?" asked the Lady of Shalott slowly.

"The Flower Charity."

"Heav