people. If
they were kind and friendly there were so many things that she could
do, but this silent creeping away from her paralysed her. She
remembered how she had said to Katherine: "No one can make me unhappy
if I do not wish it to be." Now she did not dare to think how unhappy
she was. She knew that they all thought her strange and odd, and she
felt that strangeness creeping upon her. She MUST be odd if many people
thought her so. She became terribly self-conscious, wondering whether
her words and movements were strange.

She was often so tired that she could not drag one foot after another.

A few weeks before Christmas something happened. A terrible thing,
perhaps--but she was delivered by it ...

She was sitting one afternoon a few weeks before Christmas in the
drawing-room alone with Grace. It was her "At Home" day, a Friday
afternoon. Grace was knitting a grey stocking, a long one that curled
on her lap. She knitted badly, clumsily, twisting her fingers into odd
shapes and muddling her needles. Now and then she would look up as
though she meant to talk, and then remembering that it was Maggie who
was opposite to her she would purse her lips and look down again. The
fire hummed and sputtered, the clock ticked, and Grace breathed in
heavy despairing pants over the difficulties of her work. The door
opened and the little maid, her eyes nervously wandering towards Grace,
murmured, "Mr. Cardinal, mum."

The next thing of which Maggie was conscious was Uncle Mathew standing
clumsily just inside the door shifting his bowler hat between his two
hands.

The relief of seeing him was so great that she jumped up and ran
towards him crying, "Oh, Uncle Mathew! I'm so glad! At last!"

He dropped his bowler in giving her his hand. She noticed at once that
he was looking very unhappy and had terribly run to seed.

He was badly shaved, his blue suit was shabby and soiled. He was
fatter, and his whole body was flabby and uncared for. Maggie saw at
once that he had been drinking, not very much, but enough to make him a
little uncertain on his feet and unsteady in his gaze. Maggie, when she
saw him, felt nothing but a rush of pity and desire to protect him.
Very strangely she felt the similarity between him and herself. Nobody
wanted either of them--they must just love one another because there
was no one else to love them.

She was aware then that Grace had risen and was standing looking at
them both.

She turned round