fierce eye and the accusing tone make no impression on that
cushioned fortress of gentility. With suave dignity Miss Robinson makes
chaste denial._)

JULIA. No.

LAURA (_insistent)._ Yes; in a box.

JULIA. In a box? Oh, she may have left anything in a box.

LAURA. It was that box she always travelled about with and never opened.
Well, I looked in it once (never mind how), and the tea-pot wasn't there.

JULIA (_gently, making allowance_). Well, I _didn't_ look in it,
Laura.

(_Like a water-lily folding its petals she adjusts a small shawl about
her shoulders, and sinks composedly into her chair_.)

LAURA. The more fool you!... But all the other things she had of our
Mother's _were_ there: a perfect magpie's nest! And she, living in
her boxes, and never settling anywhere. What did she want with them?

JULIA. I can't say, Laura.

LAURA. No--no more can I; no more can anyone! Martha has got the miser
spirit. She's as grasping as a caterpillar. _I_ ought to have had
that tea-pot.

JULIA. Why?

LAURA. Because I had a house of my own, and people coming to tea. Martha
never had anyone to tea with her in her life--except in lodgings.

JULIA. We all like to live in our own way. Martha liked going about.

LAURA. Yes. She promised _me_, after William--I suppose I had better
say 'evaporated' as you won't let me say 'died'--she promised always to
stay with me for three months in the year. She never did. Two, and some
little bits, were the most. And I want to know where was that tea-pot all
the time?

JULIA (_a little jocosely_). Not in the box, apparently.

LAURA (_returning to her accusation_). I thought you had it.

JULIA. You were mistaken. Had I had it here, you would have found it.

LAURA. Did Martha never tell _you_ what she did with it?

JULIA. I never asked, Laura.

LAURA. Julia, if you say that again I shall scream.

JULIA. Won't you take your things off?

LAURA. Presently. When I feel more at home. (_Returning to the
charge_) But most of our Mother's things are here.

JULIA. Your share and mine.

LAURA. How did you get mine here?

JULIA. You brought them. At least, they _came_, a little before you
did. Then I knew you were on your way.

LAURA (_impressed)._ Lor'! So that's how things happen?

(_She goes and begins to take a look round, and Julia takes up her
crochet again. As she does so her eye is arrested by a little
old-fashioned hour-glass standing upon the table from which the tea-tray