Returning she noticed that the dusk had fallen, and was about
to switch on the light when, in the rise and fall of the firelight,
something that she saw made her pause. She stood motionless by the door.
Angelina had turned in her chair; her eyes were gazing, with rapt
attention, toward the purple dusk by the window. She was listening.
Nurse, as she had often assured her friends, "was not cursed with
imagination," but now fear held her so that she could not stir nor move
save that her hand trembled against the wall paper. The chatter of the
fire, the shouts of some boys in the Square, the ringing of the bell of
St. Matthew's for evensong, all these things came into the room.
Angelina, still listening, at last smiled; then, with a little sigh, sat
back in her chair.
"Heavens! Miss 'Lina! What were you doing there? How you frightened me!"
Angelina left her chair, and went across to the window. "Auntie Emily,"
she said, "put Wosie into the fire, she did. But Wosie's saved.... He's
just come and told me."
"Lord, Miss 'Lina, how you talk!" The room was right again now just as,
a moment before, it had been wrong.
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