The people were jostled into pine boxes (in the glass), and carried away (in the glass) by twilight, in a cart.  Three of the monkeys from the spring-box in the sidewalk went, in one week, out into the foul, purple twilight, away from the looking-glass, in carts.

“I’m glad of that, poor things!” said the Lady of Shalott, for she had always felt a kind of sorrow for the monkeys.  Principally, I think, because they had no glass.

When the monkeys had gone, the sickly twilight folded itself up, over the spring-box, into great feathers, like the feathers of a wing.  That was pleasant.  The Lady of Shalott could almost put out her fingers and stroke it, it hung so near, and was so clear, and gathered such a peacefulness into the looking-glass.

“Sary Jane, dear, it’s very pleasant,” said the Lady of Shalott.  Sary Jane said it was very dangerous, the Lord knew, and bit her threads off.

“And, Sary Jane, dear!” added the Lady of Shalott, “I see so many other pleasant things.”

“The more fool you!” said Sary Jane.

But she wondered about it that day over her tenth nankeen vest.  What, for example, could the Lady of Shalott see?

“Waves!” said the Lady of Shalott, suddenly, as if she had been asked the question.  Sary Jane jumped.  She said, “Nonsense!” For the Lady of Shalott had only seen the little wash-tub full of dingy water on Sunday nights, and the dirty little hydrant (in the glass) spouting dingy jets.  She would not have known a wave if she had seen it.

“But I see waves,” said the Lady of Shalott.  She felt sure of it.  They ran up and down across the glass.  They had green faces and gray hair.  They threw back their hands, like cool people resting, and it seemed unaccountable, at the east end of South Street last summer, that anything, anywhere, if only a wave in a looking-glass, could be cool or at rest.  Besides this, they kept their faces clean.  Therefore the Lady of Shalott took pleasure in watching them run up and down across the glass.  That a thing could be clean, and green, and white, was only less a wonder than cool and rest last summer in South Street.

“Sary Jane, dear,” said the Lady of Shalott, one day, “how hot is it up here?”

“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?”