en bless it!" said the Lady of Shalott. But she said nothing more.

She laid her cheek over into the shadow of the green church towers. "And
there'll be more," said Sary Jane, hunting for her wax. "There'll be
more, whenever I can call for 'em,--bless it!"

"Heaven bless it!" said the Lady of Shalott again.

"But I only got a lemon for dinner," said Sary Jane.

"Heaven bless it!" said the Lady of Shalott, with her face hidden under
the church towers. But I don't think that she meant the lemon, though
Sary Jane did.

"They _do_ ring," said the Lady of Shalott by and by. She drew the tip
of her thin fingers across the tip of the tiny bells. "I thought they
would."

"Humph!" said Sary Jane, squeezing her lemon under her work-box. "I
never see your beat for glass-dreams. What do they say? Come, now!"

Now the Lady of Shalott knew very well what they said. Very well! But
she only drew the tips of her poor fingers over the tips of the silver
bells. Clever mind! It was not necessary to tell Sary Jane.

But it grew hot in South Street. It grew very hot in South Street. Even
the Flower Charity (bless it!) could not sweeten the dreadfulness of
that yard. Even the purple wing above the spring-box fell heavily upon
the Lady of Shalott's strained eyes, across the glass. Even the
gray-haired waves ceased running up and down and throwing back their
hands before her; they sat still, in heaps upon a blistering beach, and
gasped for breath. The Lady of Shalott herself gasped sometimes, in
watching them.

One day she said: "There's a man in them."

"A _what_ in _which_?" buzzed Sary Jane. "Oh! There's a man across the
yard, I suppose you mean. Among them young ones, yonder. I wish he'd
stop 'em throwing stones, plague on 'em! See him, don't you?"

"I don't see the children," said the Lady of Shalott, a little troubled.
Her glass had shown her so many things strangely since the days grew hot.
"But I see a man, and he walks upon the waves. See, see!"

The Lady of Shalott tried to pull herself up upon the elbow of her
calico night-dress, to see.

"That's one of them Hospital doctors," said Sary Jane, looking out of
the blazing window. "I've seen him round before. Don't know what
business he's got down here; but I've seen him. He's talkin' to them
boys now, about the stones. There! He'd better! If they don't look out,
they'll hit--"

"_O, the glass! the glass!_"

The Hospital doctor stood still; so did Sary Jane, half risen