A half-second
before she would have murmured:
"This rock shall fly From its firm base as soon as I!"
when all at once, and without warning, a strange something occurred in the
organ which she had always regarded and her opinion had never yet been
questioned as a good, tough, love-tight heart. First there was a flutter and a
tremor running all along her spine; then her eyes filled; then a lump rose in
her throat and choked her; then words trembled on her tongue and refused to be
uttered; then something like a bird--could it have been the highly respectable
good-as-new heart?--throbbed under her black silk Sunday waist; then she grew
like wax from the crown of her head to the soles of her feet; then in a
twinkling, and so unconsciously as to be unashamed of it, she became a sister.
You have seen a gray November morning melt into an Indian summer noon? Louisa
Banks was like that, when, at the sight of a man in sore trouble, sympathy was
born in her to soften the rockiness of her original makeup.
"There, there, John, don't be so downhearted," she stammered, drawing her
chair closer and putting her hand on his shoulder. "We'll bring it round
right, you see if we don't.
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