disregarded the existence of death. The great destroyer seemed to find
small employment amongst those who flocked to their work in the morning
and left it at night; but here, in the meagre room, where human clay
was, as it were, stripped of all adornments, in order not to lose the
smallest chance in the fell tussle with disease, it was brought home to
Mavis what frail opposition the bodies of men and women alike offer to
the assaults of the many missioners of death. Things that she had not
thought of before were laid bare before her eyes. The inevitable ending
of life bestowed on all flesh an infinite pathos which she had never
before remarked. The impotence of mankind to escape its destiny made
life appear to her but as a tragic procession, in which all its
distractions and vanities were only so much make-believe, in order to
hide its destination from eyes that feared to see. The helplessness,
the pitifulness of the passing away of the lonely old woman gave a
dignity, a grandeur to her declining moments, which infected the common
furniture of the room. The cheap, painted chest of drawers, the worn
trunk at the foot of the bed, the dingy wall-paper, the shaded white
glass lamp on the rickety table, all seemed invested with a nobility
alien to their everyday common appearance, inasmuch as they assisted at
the turning of a living thing, who had rejoiced, and toiled, and
suffered, into unresponsive clay. Even the American clock on the
mantelpiece acquired a fine distinction by reason of its measuring the
last moments of a human being, with all its miserable sensibility to
pain and joy--a distinction that was not a little increased, in Mavis'
eyes, owing to the worldly insignificance of the doomed woman.

After Mavis had got ready to hand things that might be wanted in the
night, she settled herself in a chair by the head of the bed in order
to snatch what sleep she might. Before she dozed, she wondered if that
day week, which she would be spending at Mrs Gowler's, would find her
as prostrated by illness as was her friend. Two or three times in the
dread silent watches of the night, she was awakened by Miss Nippett's
continually talking to herself. Mavis would interrupt her by asking if
she would take any nourishment; but Miss Nippett, vouchsafing no
answer, would go on speaking as before, her talk being entirely
concerned with matters connected with the academy. And all the time,
the American clock on the mantelpiece remors