y. Margaret must read to her, read her to sleep; Margaret must sit in
a certain place, and sit still; she must not leave the room; nobody must
speak to her but Margaret--the others could say what was necessary
through her. During one of her free intervals she explained to Winthrop
that it was Margaret's voice that soothed her; "it's so hard," she said.

"I shouldn't think that quality would be particularly soothing,"
Winthrop answered.

"On the contrary, it's the very one--that is, for me. I only need her
when I've been reduced to a pulp--like the pulp in the paper mills--by
pain; at such times that hard voice of hers is the first firm thing I
can take hold of; I crystallize round it by degrees, don't you know, and
gradually get back _some_ shape again."

Margaret's voice was not in the least hard; it was low and clear; when
it took on certain intonations, very sweet. But Winthrop did not remind
his aunt of this. She could crystallize round any adjectives that
pleased her in her moments of rest; her nephew's usual championship of
justice was postponed until she should be better.

During this time Celestine and Looth were often obliged to be
companions; there were certain things they each did which no one else
could do as well, and therefore neither one could be spared. To
Celestine it was a weird experience, this sitting up at night in the
large bare room of a strange old Spanish house (a house which had been
inhabited for generations by Papists), opposite a great black woman in a
red turban, who was in the habit of dancing barelegged in the roads in
the middle of the day; and all this on a winter night with roses
blooming outside in the garden, and the perfume of orange blossoms
coming in through the half-closed windows--a winter night which seemed
to have gone astray from some other world. The absence of cold in winter
climates abroad Celestine had accepted without opposition; it was only
part of their general outlandishness. But that such foreign
eccentricities should exist in the United States of America, under the
Stars and Stripes, this she by no means approved; like many other
persons, she could not help believing that frost-tipped noses were an
accompaniment of republican simplicity and virtue, and that a good
conscience and east wind could not be long separated without danger to
morals.

She had never alluded to the dance. But one night Looth herself alluded
to it. "Specks yer seen us, Miss Selsty, dat day