y and May, however, could hardly
refrain from shrieking out in terror as they shivered by these furtive,
crouching shapes whose gaze was concentrated on things not seen by them.
In the long ward at whose extreme end their mother's bed was situated,
these alternations of embarrassment and fear became even more acute.
Nearly all the occupants of the beds had shaved heads which gave them,
especially the gray-haired women, a very ghastly appearance. Many of
them would mutter audible comments on the two girls as they passed
along, comparing them extravagantly to angels or to long-lost friends
and relatives. Some would whimper in the terrible imagination that Jenny
and May had arrived to hurt them. The girls were glad when the battery
of mad eyes was passed and they could stand beside their mother's bed.

"Here are your daughters come all this long way to see you, Mrs.
Raeburn," the nurse would announce, and "Well, mother," or "How are you
now, mother?" they would shyly inquire.

Mrs. Raeburn could not recognize them, but would regard them from
wide-open eyes that betrayed neither friendliness nor dislike.

"Won't you say you're glad to see them?" the nurse would ask.

Then sometimes Mrs. Raeburn would bury herself in the bedclothes to lie
motionless until they had gone, or sometimes she would count on her
fingers mysterious sums and ghostly numerals comprehended in the dim
mid-region where her soul sojourned. If Jenny or May looked up in
embarrassment, they would see all around them reasonless heads, some
smiling and bobbing and beckoning, some grimacing horribly, and every
one, save the listless head they loved best, occupied with mad
speculations upon the identity of the two girls. After every visit, as
hopelessly they were leaving the ward, the nurse would say:

"I expect your mother will be better next time you come and able to talk
a bit."

They would be shown into a stuffy little parlor while the brougham was
being brought round, a stuffy little room smelling of plum-cake and
sherry. In the window hung a cage containing an old green paroquet that
all the time swore softly to itself and seemed in the company of the mad
to have lost its own clear bird's intelligence. Then back they would
drive along the straight, wet avenue in a sound of twilight gales, back
to the rain-soaked, dreary little station in whose silent waiting-room
they would sit, crying softly to themselves, until the Marylebone train
came in.

Thes