Only the other day I heard Sir William
a-speaking of it--"
She held his arm more tightly. They were on the lawn by now. The flood
of sunlight caught them, showed up the worn and shabby places in his
suit of broadcloth, gleamed on her bursting shoes she "fancied" for
her kitchen work. They heard the birds, they smelt the flowers, the
air bathed them all over like a sea.
"And the silver, Alfred," she said in a lower tone. "Who in the world
can make it look as you do? But what I've been feeling lately--since
this morning, that is to say--and feeling for the first time in me
life, so to speak--"
"Bridget, dear, you've got it!" he interrupted with excitement, "I've
felt it too. Felt it this morning first, when I woke up and remembered
that nobody wanted hot-water nor early tea, and I said to myself,
'There's more than that in it. I'm not doing all this just only for a
salary. I'm doing it for something else. What is it?'"
He spoke very rapidly for a butler. He looked down at her red and
smiling face.
"What is it?" he repeated, curiously moved.
She looked up at him without a word.
"It's something 'idden," he said, after a pause.
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