"I guess you can stand it if I can!" said the rat-trap.

"O, yes, dear," said the Lady of Shalott. "I can stand it if you can."

"Well, then!" said Sary Jane. But she sat and winked at the bald window,
and the window held its burning tongue.

It grew hot in South Street. It grew very hot in South Street. The lean
children in the attic opposite fell sick, and sat no longer in the
window making faces, in the Lady of Shalott's glass.

Two more monkeys from the spring-box were carried away one ugly twilight
in a cart. The purple wing that hung over the spring-box lifted to let
them pass; and then fell, as if it had brushed them away.

"It has such a soft color!" said the Lady of Shalott, smiling.

"So has nightshade!" said Sary Jane.

One day a beautiful thing happened. One can scarcely understand how a
beautiful thing _could_ happen at the east end of South Street. The Lady
of Shalott herself did not entirely understand.

"It is all the glass," she said.

She was lying very still when she said it. She had folded her hands,
which were hot, to keep them quiet too. She had closed her eyes, which
ached, to close away the glare of the noon. At once she opened them, and
said:--