PART II
Six months had passed.
It was now mid-winter.
And still the girl lived. Her vitality appeared
inexhaustible.
She got up earlier and earlier. She now rose yesterday
afternoon.
At intervals she seemed almost sane, and spoke in a most
pathetic manner of her grave and the probability of the
sun shining on it early in the morning, and her mother
walking on it later in the day. At other times her malady
would seize her, and she would snatch the brick off the
string and throw it fiercely at Tennyson. Once, in an
uncontrollable fit of madness, she gave her sister Effie
a half-share in her garden tools and an interest in a
box of mignonette.
The poet stayed doggedly on. In the chill of the morning
twilight he broke the ice in his water-basin and cursed
the girl. But he felt that he had broken the ice and he
stayed.
On the whole, life at the cottage, though rugged, was
not cheerless. In the long winter evenings they would
gather around a smoking fire of peat, while Tennyson read
aloud the Idylls of the King to the rude old cottager.
Not to show his rudeness, the old man kept awake by
sitting on a tin-tack. This also kept his mind on the
right tack. The two found that they had much in common,
especially the old cottager. They called each other
"Alfred" and "Hezekiah" now.
