"Oh Grace, I'm so sorry!" said Maggie.
"It doesn't matter," said Grace; "but how you could forget, Maggie, is so strange! Do try not to forget things.I know it worries Paul.
For myself I don't care, although I do value punctuality and memory-I do indeed.What I mean is that it isn't for my own happiness that I mind--""I don't want to forget," said Maggie."One would think to hear you, Grace, that you imagine I like forgetting.""Really, Maggie," said Grace, "I don't think that's quite the way to speak to me."And again and again throughout the long winter this little episode figured.
"You'll remember to be punctual, won't you, Maggie? Not like the time when you forgot to tell me.""You'll forgive me reminding you, Maggie, but I didn't want it to be like the time you forgot to give me--""Oh, you'd better not trust to Maggie, Paul.Only the other day when you gave her the message about Evensong--"Grace meant no harm by this.Her mind moved slowly and was entangled by a vast quantity of useless lumber.She was really shocked by carelessness and inaccuracy because she was radically careless and inaccurate herself but didn't know it.
"If there's one thing I value it's order." she would say, but in struggling to remember superficial things she forgot all essentials.
Her brain moved just half as slowly as everything else.
That winter was warm and muggy, with continuous showers of warm rain that seamed to change into mud in the air as it fell.
The Church was filled with the clammy mist of its central heating.