hich belongs to her two sisters. Age has
given a depression to the plain kindliness of her face, and there is a
harassed look about her eyes. She peeps into the room a little anxiously,
then enters, carrying a large flat box covered in purple paper which, in
her further progress across the room she lays upon the table. She talks
in short jerks and has a quick, hurried way of doing things, as if she
liked to get through and have done with them. It is the same when she
submits herself to the embrace of her relations._)

LAURA. Oh, so you've come at last. Quite time, too!

MARTHA. Yes, here I am.

JULIA. My dear Martha, welcome to your old home! (_Embracing her._) How
are you?

MARTHA. I'm cold. Well, Laura.

(_Between these two the embrace is less cordial, but it takes place._)

LAURA. How did you come?

MARTHA. I don't know.

JULIA (_seeing harassment in her sister's eye_). Arrived safely, at any
rate.

MARTHA. I think I was in a railway accident, but I can't be sure. I only
heard the crash and people shouting. I didn't wait to see. I just put my
fingers in my ears, and ran away.

LAURA. Why do you think it was a railway accident?

MARTHA. Because I was in a railway carriage. I was coming to your
funeral. If you'd told me you were ill I'd have come before. I was
bringing you a wreath. And then, as I tell you, there was a crash and a
shout; and that's all I know about it.

LAURA. Lor', Martha! I suppose they'll have an inquest on you.

MARTHA (_stung_). I think they'd better mind their own business, and you
mind yours!

JULIA. Laura! Here we don't talk about such things. They don't concern
us. Would you like tea, Martha, or will you wait for supper?

MARTHA (_who has shaken her head at the offer of tea,_ _and nodded a
preference for supper_). You know how I've always dreaded death.

JULIA. Oh, don't, my dear Martha! It's past.

MARTHA. Yes; but it's upset me. The relief, that's what I can't get over:
the relief!

JULIA. Presently you will be more used to it.

(_She helps her off with her cloak._)

MARTHA. There were people sitting to right and to left of me and
opposite; and suddenly a sort of crash of darkness seemed to come all
over me, and I saw nothing more. I didn't feel anything: only a sort of a
jar here.

(_She indicates the back of her neck. Julia finds these anatomical
details painful, and holds her hands deprecatingly; but Laura has no such
qualms. She is now undoing the parcel which