Sarah's sufferings, and with a
sad absence of logic blamed her in her misfortune, just as though she
had wilfully brought the maladies upon herself in order to vex them.
Then, further, it was necessary always to minister to Sarah's illusion
that Sarah was the mainstay of the house, that she attended to
everything and was responsible for everything, and that without her
governance the machine would come to a disastrous standstill: the fact
being that she had grown feeble and superfluous. Sarah had taught all
she knew to two highly intelligent pupils, and had survived her
usefulness. She had no right place on earth. But in her morose
inefficiency she had developed into an unconscious tyrant--a tyrant
whose power lay in the loyalty of her subjects and not at all in her own
soul. She was indeed like a deity, immanent, brooding, and unaware of
itself!... Thus, the question of Florrie's bed had been discussed and
settled long before Sarah Gailey had even thought of it; but Hilda might
not tell her so. Lastly, this very question of Florrie's bed was
exasperating to Hilda. Already Louisa's kennel was inadequate for
Louisa, and now another couch had been crowded into it. Hilda was
ashamed of the shift; but there was no alternative. Here, for Hilda, was
the secret canker of George Cannon's brilliant success. The servants
were kindly ill-treated. In the commercial triumph she lost the sense of
the tragic forlornness of boarding-house existence, as it had struck her
on the day of her arrival. But the image of the Indian god in the
basement and of the prone forms of the servants in stifling black
cupboards under the roof and under the stairs--these images embittered
at intervals the instinctive and reflecting exultation of her moods.

She adjusted her small, close-fitting flowered hat, dropped her parasol
across the bed, and began to draw on her cotton gloves.

"Where are you going, dear?" asked Sarah Gailey.

"Out with Mr. Cannon."

"But where?"

"I don't know." In spite of herself there was a certain unnecessary
defiance in Hilda's voice.

"You don't know, dear?" Sarah Gailey suddenly ceased rocking, and
glanced at Hilda with the mournful expression of acute worry that was so
terribly familiar on her features. Although it was notorious that
baseless apprehensions were a part of Sarah's disease, nevertheless
Hilda could never succeed in treating any given apprehension as quite
baseless. And now Sarah's mere tone begot in Hi