le, now became
Spartan indeed, and I am sure that my Mother often pretended to
have no appetite that there might remain enough to satisfy my
hunger. Fortunately my Father was able to take us away in the
autumn for six weeks by the sea in Wales, the expenses of this
tour being paid for by a professional engagement, so that my
seventh birthday was spent in an ecstasy of happiness, on golden
sands, under a brilliant sky, and in sight of the glorious azure
ocean beating in from an infinitude of melting horizons. Here,
too, my Mother, perched in a nook of the high rocks, surveyed the
west, and forgot for a little while her weakness and the gnawing,
grinding pain.

But in October, our sorrows seemed to close in upon us. We went
back to London, and for the first time in their married life, my
parents were divided. My Mother was now so seriously weaker that
the omnibus journeys to Pimlico became impossible. My Father
could not leave his work and so my Mother and I had to take a
gloomy lodging close to the doctor's house. The experiences upon
which I presently entered were of a nature in which childhood
rarely takes a part. I was now my Mother's sole and ceaseless
companion; the silent witness of her suffering, of her patience,
of her vain and delusive attempts to obtain alleviation of her
anguish. For nearly three months I breathed the atmosphere of
pain, saw no other light, heard no other sounds, thought no other
thoughts than those which accompany physical suffering and
weariness. To my memory these weeks seem years; I have no measure
of their monotony. The lodgings were bare and yet tawdry; out of
dingy windows we looked from a second storey upon a dull small
street, drowned in autumnal fog. My Father came to see us when he
could, but otherwise, save when we made our morning expedition to
the doctor, or when a slatternly girl waited upon us with our
distasteful meals, we were alone, without any other occupation
than to look forward to that occasional abatement of suffering
which was what we hoped for most.

It is difficult for me to recollect how these interminable hours
were spent. But I read aloud in a great part of them. I have now
in my mind's cabinet a picture of my chair turned towards the
window, partly that I might see the book more distinctly, partly
not to see quite so distinctly that dear patient figure rocking
on her sofa, or leaning, like a funeral statue, like a muse upon
a monument, with her head on her a