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 from her
chair; so did the very South Street boys, gaping in the gutter, with
their hands full of stones, such a cry rang out from the palace window.
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