She opened her curtains, and looked
out towards the bit of road that lay in view, with fields beyond
outside the entrance-gates. On the road there was a man with a bundle
on his back and a woman carrying her baby; in the field she could
see figures moving--perhaps the shepherd with his dog. Far off
in the bending sky was the pearly light; and she felt the largeness
of the world and the manifold wakings of men to labor and endurance.
She was a part of that involuntary, palpitating life, and could
neither look out on it from her luxurious shelter as a mere spectator,
nor hide her eyes in selfish complaining.
What she would resolve to do that day did not yet seem quite clear,
but something that she could achieve stirred her as with an approaching
murmur which would soon gather distinctness. She took off the clothes
which seemed to have some of the weariness of a hard watching in them,
and began to make her toilet. Presently she rang for Tantripp,
who came in her dressing-gown.
"Why, madam, you've never been in bed this blessed night,"
burst out Tantripp, looking first at the bed and then at Dorothea's face,
which in spite of bathing had the pale cheeks and pink eyelids of a
mater dolorosa. "You'll kill yourself, you _will_. Anybody
might think now you had a right to give yourself a little comfort."
"Don't be alarmed, Tantripp," said Dorothea, smiling.
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