er be the same afterwards--could ever value again the
small personal joys, when she carried the memory of supreme joy or
supreme anguish buried within her heart. She remembered that her mother
had never seemed young to her, not even in her earliest childhood; and
she understood now why this had been so, why the deeper experiences of
life rob the smaller ones of all vividness, of all poignancy. It had
been so easy for her mother to give up little things, to deny herself,
to do without, to make no further demands on life after the great
demands had been granted her. How often had she said unthinkingly in her
girlhood, "Mother, you never want anything for yourself." Ah, she knew
now what it meant, and with the knowledge a longing seized her to throw
herself into her mother's arms, to sob out her understanding and her
sympathy, to let her feel before it was too late that she comprehended
every step of the way, every throb of the agony!

"I'd spend the night with you, Jinny, if I didn't have to be with Milly
Carrington, who has two children down with it," said the doctor; "but if
there's any change, get Marthy to come for me. If not, I'll be sure to
look in again before daybreak."

When he had gone, she moved the night lamp to the corner of the
washstand, and after swallowing hastily a cup of coffee which Marthy had
brought to her before the doctor's visit, and which had grown quite
tepid and unpalatable, she resumed her patient watch under the raised
end of the sheet. The whole of life, the whole of the universe even, had
narrowed down for her into that faint circle of light which the lamp
drew around Harry's little bed. It was as if this narrow circle beat
with a separate pulse, divided from the rest of existence by its
intense, its throbbing vitality. Here was concentrated for her all that
the world had to offer of hope, fear, rapture, or anguish. The
littleness and the terrible significance of the individual destiny were
gathered into that faintly quivering centre of space--so small a part of
the universe, and yet containing the whole universe within itself!

Outside, in the street, she could see a half-bared bough of the mulberry
tree, arching against a square of window, from which the white curtains
were drawn back; and in order to quiet her broken and disjointed
thoughts, she began to count the leaves as they fell, one by one,
turning softly at the stem, and then floating out into the darkness
beyond. "One. Two. How