en I
was ill, and my maid was ill. She did everything for me. I have often
cried about that at night since."

* * * * *

"Mother always used to tell me and I never believed it, but it is
true--men are children and it is no good thinking them different. They
never grow up. I don't know if there are any grown up men anywhere. I
suppose there must be--but I have never met one. I don't know any Prime
Ministers or Archbishops, but I expect they are just the same as your
father in home life."

* * * * *

"I daresay your father will be sorry when I'm gone. People like your
father are always very fond of someone who is dead, who has no longer
any claim upon them: a mother or a sister, whom they did not take much
trouble about when they were alive.

"Of course I am going to die first, but I sometimes used to think if
your father died before me and if he were allowed to come back after
death--such things do happen--I had a friend who saw a ghost
once--whether he would be as vexed then at any little change as he is
now. You know, Magdalen, it has always been a cross to me that the
writing-table in my sitting-room is away from the light. My eyes were
never strong. I moved it near the window when I first came here, but
your father was annoyed and had it put back where it is now, because his
mother always had it there. But I really could not see to write there.
And I have often thought if he came back after he was dead whether he
would mind if he found I had moved it nearer the window."

* * * * *

"The Bishop of Elvaston married us. I daresay you don't remember him, my
dear. He died a few years later. He had a wart on his chin and he once
shook hands with baby's feet. But he was good. He told me I must
sacrifice all to love. But what has been the use of all my sacrifices,
first of myself and then of others? Your father has not been the happier
or the better for it, but the worse. I have let him do so many cruel
little things for which others have suffered. It was not exactly that he
did not see what he was doing. He would not see. Some people are like
that. They won't look, and they become dreadfully angry if they are
asked to look. I gave it up at last. Oh, my poor husband! I knew I had
failed everybody else, but at any rate not him. But I see now,"--the
weak voice broke--"I see now that I have failed him, too. We ought
never to ha