She would not allow Annie to touch it: she could not trust the creature
that had nothing but eyes to guide her, with such a delicate affair.
Her very hands looked blind and trying to see, as, with fine up-curved
tips, they went wandering over the tops of the live peats. She
re-arranged them, put on some fresh pieces, blew a little at them all
astray and to no purpose, was satisfied, coughed, and sank upon a
chair, to put her bonnet off. Most women of her station wore only a
_mutch_ or close cap, but Tibbie wore a bonnet with a brilliantly gay
ribbon, so fond was she of bright colours, although she had nothing but
the testimony of others, vague enough ere it succeeded in crossing the
dark distances of her brain, as to the effect of those even with which
she adorned her own person. Her room was very bare, but as clean as it
was possible for room to be. Her bed was in the wall which divided it
from the rest of the house, and this one room was her whole habitation.
The other half of the cottage was occupied by an old cripple, nearly
bedridden, to whose many necessities Tibbie used to minister. The eyes
of the one and the legs of the other worked in tolerable harmony; and
if they had a quarrel now and then, it was no greater than gave a zest
to their intercourse.
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