"
"My own, I was more than vexed; chiefly perhaps for your sake, but not
by you. Where any other woman would have stung the sore by sending
fresh sparks along the wire, you thought only to spare me the pain of
seeing you pained. But what do the last words mean? No"--for I saw the
colour deepen on her half-averted face--"better leave unread what we
know to be written in error."
But the less agreeable a supposed duty, the more resolute was Eveena
to fulfil it.
"They were meant to recall a saying familiar in every school and
household," she said:--
"'Sandal loosed and well-clasped zone--
Childhood spares the woman grown.
Change the clasps, and woman yet
Pays with interest childhood's debt.'"
"This"--tightening and relaxing the clasp of her zone--"is the symbol
of stricter or more indulgent household rule." Then bending so as to
avert her face, she unclasped her embroidered sandal and gave it into
my hand;--"and this is what, I suppose, you would call its sanction."
"There is more to be said for the sandal than I supposed, bambina, if
it have helped to make you what you are.
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