Her hands pressed each other impulsively, as if at the shock of a sudden beautiful thought, and then perhaps she was thanking God for making her the one woman who could be the right wife for Tommy.  She was so certain that no other woman could help him as she could; none knew his virtues as she knew them.  Had it not been for her, his showy parts only would have been loved; the dear, quiet ones would never have heard how dear they were:  the showy ones were open to all the world, but the quiet ones were her private garden.  His faults as well as his virtues passed before her, and it is strange to know that it was about this time that Grizel ceased to cry and began to smile instead.  I know why she smiled; it was because sentimentality was one of the little monsters that came skipping into her view, and Tommy was so confident that he had got rid at last of it!  Grizel knew better!  But she could look at it and smile.  Perhaps she was not sorry that it was still there with the others, it had so long led the procession.  I daresay she saw herself taking the leering, distorted thing in hand and making something gallant of it.  She thought that she was too practical, too much given to seeing but one side to a question, too lacking in consideration for others, too impatient, too relentlessly just, and she humbly thanked God for all these faults, because Tommy’s excesses were in the opposite direction, and she could thus restore the balance.  She was full of humility while she saw how useful she could be to him, but her face did not show this; she had forgotten her face, and elation had spread over it without her knowing.  Perhaps God accepted the elation as part of the thanks.

She thanked God for giving Tommy what he wanted so much—­herself.  Ah, she had thanked Him for that before, but she did it again.  And then she went on her knees by her dear doctor’s chair, and prayed that she might be a good wife to Tommy.

When she rose the blood was not surging through her veins.  Instead of a passion of joy it was a beautiful calm that possessed her, and on noticing this she regarded herself with sudden suspicion, as we put our ear to a watch to see if it has stopped.  She found that she was still going, but no longer either fast or slow, and she saw what had happened:  her old serene self had come back to her.  I think she thanked God for that most of all.

And then she caught sight of her face—­oh, oh!  Her first practical act as an engaged woman was to wash her face.

Engaged!  But was she?  Grizel laughed.  It is not usually a laughing matter, but she could not help that.  Consider her predicament.  She could be engaged at once, if she liked, even before she wiped the water from her face, or she might postpone it, to let Tommy share.  The careful reader will have noticed that this problem presented itself to her at an awkward moment.  She laughed, in short, while her face was still in the basin, with the very proper result that she had to grope for the towel with her eyes shut.