Once she found it utterly impossible to decipher a certain word of the manuscript. She scrutinized it earnestly, and then, her mind entirely occupied by her desire properly to read the matter, she rose, and came close to the grating, holding the page so that I could see it.
"Can you make out this word?" she asked. "I cannot imagine how any one could write so carelessly."
I sprang to my feet and stood close to the grating. I could not take the paper from her, and it was necessary for her to hold it. I examined the word letter by letter. I gave my opinion of each letter, and I asked her opinion. It was a most illegible word. A good many things interfered with my comprehension of it. Among these were the two hands with which she held up the page, and another was the idea which came to me that in the House of Martha the sisters were fed on violets. I am generally quite apt at deciphering bad writing, but never before had I shown myself so slow and obtuse at this sort of thing.
Suddenly a thought struck me. I glanced at the clock in my study. It wanted ten minutes of twelve.
"It must be," said I, "that that word is intended to be 'heaven-given,'--at any rate, we will make it that; and now I think I will get you to copy the last part of that page. You can do it on the back of the sheet."
She was engaged in this writing when Sister Sarah came in.
During the engagement of my present secretary, a question had frequently arisen in my mind, which I wished to have answered, but which I had hesitated to ask, for fear the sister should imagine it indicated too much personal interest in her. This question related to her name, and now it was really necessary for me to know it. I did not wish any longer to speak to her as if she were merely a principle; she had become a most decided entity. However harsh and gray and woolly her name might be, I wanted to know it and to hear it from her own lips. The next morning I asked her what it was.
She was sitting at the table arranging the pages she was going to read, and at the question she turned toward me. Her face was flushed, but not, I think, with displeasure.
"Do you know," she said, "it has seemed to me the funniest thing in the world that you have never cared the least bit to know my name."