She looked at him with frank, appealing eyes, like those of a child in
fault.

"Oh, I did not sleep all night!" she said, simply. "I thought I had been
rude and ungrateful, and I could not be sure I had done right, though to
have done otherwise would certainly have been wrong."

He laughed.

"Well, that is a clearer deduction than is to be drawn from most moral
uncertainties. Do not think twice about the matter, my dear. I have not,
I assure you."

"No!"

She was a little disappointed. It seemed such an immense thing to her;
and she had lain awake all the night, turning it about in her little
brain, and appealing vainly for help in it to the sixteen sleep-angels.

"No, indeed. And where are you going so fast, as if those wooden shoes of
yours were sandals of Mercury?"

"Mercury--is that a shoemaker?"

"No, my dear. He did a terrible bit of cobbling once, when he made
Woman. But he did not shoe her feet with swiftness that I know of; she
only runs away to be run after, and if you do not pursue her, she comes
back--always."