Only Miss Waghorn continued the train of ideas this started,
with a coherence that surprised even herself. Somehow the jabber about
dreams, though in a language that only enabled her to catch its
general drift, had interested her uncommonly. She seemed on the verge
of remembering something. She had listened with patience, a look of
peace upon her anxious old face that was noticed even by Jane Anne.
'It smoothed her out,' was her verdict afterwards, given only to
herself though. 'Everything is a sort of long unfinished dream to her,
I suppose, at _that_ age.'
While the _famille anglaise_ renewed noisily their excitement of the
Magic Box, and while the talk in the hall went on and on, re-hashing
the details of the cook's marvellous experience, and assuming entirely
new proportions, Miss Waghorn glanced about her seeking whom she might
devour--and her eye caught Henry Rogers, listening as usual in
silence.
'Ah,' she said to him, 'but _I_ look forward to sleep. I might say I
long for it.' She sighed very audibly. It was both a sigh for release
and a faint remembrance that last night her sleep had been somehow
deep and happy, strangely comforting.
'It is welcome sometimes, isn't it?' he answered, always polite and
rather gentle with her.
'Sleep unravels, yes,' she said, vaguely as to context, yet with a
querulous intensity.
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