as the arm of Emily Wrackgarth, prickling and
tingling as with red-hot needles in every tendon from wrist to elbow.
And still Emily Wrackgarth hardened her heart.

Presently she saw the spoon no longer revolving, but wavering
aimlessly in the midst of the basin. Ridiculous! This must be seen
to! In the down of dark hairs that connected her eyebrows there was a
marked deepening of that vertical cleft which, visible at all times,
warned you that here was a young woman not to be trifled with. Her
brain despatched to her hand a peremptory message--which miscarried.
The spoon wabbled as though held by a baby. Emily knew that she
herself as a baby had been carried into this very kitchen to stir
the Christmas pudding. Year after year, as she grew up, she had been
allowed to stir it "for luck." And those, she reflected, were the only
cookery lessons she ever got. How like Mother!

Mrs. Wrackgarth had died in the past year, of a complication of
ailments.[8] Emily still wore on her left shoulder that small tag of
crape which is as far as the Five Towns go in the way of mourning. Her
father had died in the year previous to that, of a still more curious
and enthralling complication of ailments.[9] Jos, his son, carried
on the Wrackgarth Works, and Emily kept house for Jos. She with her
own hand had made this pudding. But for her this pudding would not
have been. Fantastic! Utterly incredible! And yet so it was. She was
grown-up. She was mistress of the house. She could make or unmake
puddings at will. And yet she was Emily Wrackgarth. Which was absurd.

[Footnote 8: See "The History of Sarah Wrackgarth," pp. 345-482.]

[Footnote 9: See "The History of Sarah Wrackgarth," pp. 231-344.]

She would not try to explain, to reconcile. She abandoned herself to
the exquisite mysteries of existence. And yet in her abandonment she
kept a sharp look-out on herself, trying fiercely to make head or
tail of her nature. She thought herself a fool. But the fact that
she thought so was for her a proof of adult sapience. Odd! She gave
herself up. And yet it was just by giving herself up that she seemed
to glimpse sometimes her own inwardness. And these bleak revelations
saddened her. But she savoured her sadness. It was the wine of life
to her. And for her sadness she scorned herself, and in her conscious
scorn she recovered her self-respect.

It is doubtful whether the people of southern England have even yet
realised how much introspection t