dread the visit
to London as much as I usually did. For some unknown reason I became
conscious that I was not really reluctant to go. Usually the thought
of the days before me made me restless and low-spirited. London always
seemed so confused and crowded, and made me feel as if I were being
pushed and jostled by a mob always making a tiresome noise. But this
time I felt as if I should somehow find a clear place to stand in, where
I could look on and listen without being bewildered. It was a curious
feeling; I could not help noticing and wondering about it.

I knew afterward that it came to me because a change was drawing near. I
wish so much that I could tell about it in a better way. But I have only
my own way, which I am afraid seems very like a school-girl's.

Jean Braidfute made the journey with me, as she always did, and it was
like every other journey. Only one incident made it different, and when
it occurred there seemed nothing unusual in it. It was only a bit of
sad, everyday life which touched me. There is nothing new in seeing a
poor woman in deep mourning.

Jean and I had been alone in our railway carriage for a great part of
the journey; but an hour or two before we reached London a man got in
and took a seat in a corner. The train had stopped at a place where
there is a beautiful and well-known cemetery. People bring their friends
from long distances to lay them there. When one passes the station, one
nearly always sees sad faces and people in mourning on the platform.

There was more than one group there that day, and the man who sat in the
corner looked out at them with gentle eyes. He had fine, deep eyes and a
handsome mouth. When the poor woman in mourning almost stumbled into
the carriage, followed by her child, he put out his hand to help her
and gave her his seat. She had stumbled because her eyes were dim with
dreadful crying, and she could scarcely see. It made one's heart stand
still to see the wild grief of her, and her unconsciousness of the world
about her. The world did not matter. There was no world. I think there
was nothing left anywhere but the grave she had just staggered blindly
away from. I felt as if she had been lying sobbing and writhing and
beating the new turf on it with her poor hands, and I somehow knew that
it had been a child's grave she had been to visit and had felt she left
to utter loneliness when she turned away.

It was because I thought this that I wished she had