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.”

“Heaven 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—­”