She was often so tired that she could not drag one foot after another.
A few weeks before Christmas something happened.A terrible thing, perhaps--but she was delivered by it...
She was sitting one afternoon a few weeks before Christmas in the drawing-room alone with Grace.It was her "At Home" day, a Friday afternoon.Grace was knitting a grey stocking, a long one that curled on her lap.She knitted badly, clumsily, twisting her fingers into odd shapes and muddling her needles.Now and then she would look up as though she meant to talk, and then remembering that it was Maggie who was opposite to her she would purse her lips and look down again.The fire hummed and sputtered, the clock ticked, and Grace breathed in heavy despairing pants over the difficulties of her work.The door opened and the little maid, her eyes nervously wandering towards Grace, murmured, "Mr.Cardinal, mum."The next thing of which Maggie was conscious was Uncle Mathew standing clumsily just inside the door shifting his bowler hat between his two hands.
The relief of seeing him was so great that she jumped up and ran towards him crying, "Oh, Uncle Mathew! I'm so glad! At last!"He dropped his bowler in giving her his hand.She noticed at once that he was looking very unhappy and had terribly run to seed.
He was badly shaved, his blue suit was shabby and soiled.He was fatter, and his whole body was flabby and uncared for.Maggie saw at once that he had been drinking, not very much, but enough to make him a little uncertain on his feet and unsteady in his gaze.Maggie, when she saw him, felt nothing but a rush of pity and desire to protect him.Very strangely she felt the similarity between him and herself.Nobody wanted either of them--they must just love one another because there was no one else to love them.