big with remote and disastrous consequences.
She required a few pieces herself, the Foundation which, after many
importunities, had gathered her to its charitable breast, giving nothing
but bare planks and cheaply papered bricks to the objects of its
solicitude. The delicacy guiding her choice to the least valuable and
most dilapidated articles passed unacknowledged, because Winnie's
philosophy consisted in not taking notice of the inside of facts; she
assumed that mother took what suited her best. As to Mr Verloc, his
intense meditation, like a sort of Chinese wall, isolated him completely
from the phenomena of this world of vain effort and illusory appearances.

Her selection made, the disposal of the rest became a perplexing question
in a particular way. She was leaving it in Brett Street, of course. But
she had two children. Winnie was provided for by her sensible union with
that excellent husband, Mr Verloc. Stevie was destitute--and a little
peculiar. His position had to be considered before the claims of legal
justice and even the promptings of partiality. The possession of the
furniture would not be in any sense a provision. He ought to have
it--the poor boy. But to give it to him would be like tampering with his
position of complete dependence. It was a sort of claim which she feared
to weaken. Moreover, the susceptibilities of Mr Verloc would perhaps not
brook being beholden to his brother-in-law for the chairs he sat on. In
a long experience of gentlemen lodgers, Mrs Verloc's mother had acquired
a dismal but resigned notion of the fantastic side of human nature. What
if Mr Verloc suddenly took it into his head to tell Stevie to take his
blessed sticks somewhere out of that? A division, on the other hand,
however carefully made, might give some cause of offence to Winnie. No,
Stevie must remain destitute and dependent. And at the moment of leaving
Brett Street she had said to her daughter: "No use waiting till I am
dead, is there? Everything I leave here is altogether your own now, my
dear."

Winnie, with her hat on, silent behind her mother's back, went on
arranging the collar of the old woman's cloak. She got her hand-bag, an
umbrella, with an impassive face. The time had come for the expenditure
of the sum of three-and-sixpence on what might well be supposed the last
cab drive of Mrs Verloc's mother's life. They went out at the shop door.

The conveyance awaiting them would have illust