and I was relieved when I felt
the little soft grey veils drawing about me which I knew meant sleep.
It seemed to me that I really ought to weep--that the circumstances were
such that I should weep. But sleep was sweeter than tears, and not only
the pain in my mind but the jar and bruise of my body seemed to demand
that oblivion. So I gave way to the impulse, and the grey veils wrapped
around and around me as a spider's web enwraps a fly. And for hours I
knew nothing.

When I awoke it was the close of day. Long tender shadows lay across the
fields, the sky had that wonderful clearness and kindness which is like
a human eye, and the soft wind puffing in at the window was sweet with
field fragrance. A glass of milk and a plate with two slices of bread
lay on the window sill by me, as if some one had placed them there
from the outside. I could hear birds settling down for the night, and
cheeping drowsily to each other. My cat came on the scene and, seeing
me, looked at me with serious, expanding eyes, twitched her whiskers
cynically, and passed on. Presently I heard the voices of my family.
They were re-entering the sitting-room. Supper was over--supper, with
its cold meats and shining jellies, its "floating island" and its fig
cake. I could hear a voice that was new to me. It was deeper than my
mother's, and its accent was different. It was the sort of a voice that
made you feel that its owner had talked with many different kinds of
people, and had contrived to hold her own with all of them. I knew it
belonged to Aunt Cordelia. And now that I was not to see her, I felt
my curiosity arising in me. I wanted to look at her, and still more I
wished to ask her about goodness. She was rich and good! Was one the
result of the other? And which came first? I dimly perceived that if
there had been more money in our house there would have been more help,
and I would not have been led into temptation--baby would not have been
left too long upon my hands. However, after a few moments of self-pity,
I rejected this thought. I knew I really was to blame, and it occurred
to me that I would add to my faults if I tried to put the blame on
anybody else.

Now that the first shock was over and that my sleep had refreshed me, I
began to see what terrible sorrow had been mine if the fall had really
injured Julie; and a sudden thought shook me. She might, after all, have
been hurt in some way that would show itself later on. I yearned to look