ing me safe for Richard''s sake. I think that she forgets it, too.
One day she takes my arm as we are walking. It is nothing to her; but I feel the shock of it, like a slap. Another time, after sitting, I complain that my feet are chilled: she kneels before me, unlaces my slippers, takes my feet in her hands and hold and chafes them— finally dips her head and carelessly breathes upon my toes. She begins to dress me as she pleases; makes little changes to my gowns, my hair, my rooms. She brings flowers: throws away the vases of curling leaves that have always stood on my drawing-room tables, and finds primroses in the hedges of my uncle''s park to put in their place. ''Of course, you don''t get the flowers that you get in London, in the country,'' she says, as she sets them in the glass; ''but these are pretty enough, ain''t they?''
She has Margaret bring extra coals for my fires, from Mr Way. Such a simple thing to do!—and yet no-one has thought to do it before, for my sake; even I have not thought to do it; and so I have gone cold, through seven winters. The heat makes the windows cloud. She likes to stand, then, and draw loops and hearts and spirals upon the glass.
One time she brings me back from my uncle''s room and I find the luncheon-table spread with playing-cards. My mother''s cards, I suppose; for these are my mother''s rooms, and filled with her things; and yet for a second it quite disconcerts me, to imagine my mother here—actually here—walking here, sitting here, setting out the coloured cards upon the cloth. My mother, unmarried, still sane—perhaps, idly leaning her cheek upon her knuckles—perhaps, sighing—and waiting, waiting . . .