presented itself to him as a solemn and prophetic utterance, of such as
are remembered with awe for years and continue to jut up clear in the
mind when all minor souvenirs of the time have crumbled away. And he
would have given much of his pride to be able to go back and help the
old man upstairs once more, and do it with a more loving patience.

"I've sent Jane," said Maggie, returning to the bedroom. "You'd better
go and finish dressing."

On coming out of the bathroom he discovered Albert on the landing,
waiting.

"The missis would have me come up and see how he was," said Albert. "So
I've run in between school and chapel. When I told her what a doing he
gave us, getting him upstairs, she was quite in a way, and she would
have me come up. The kid's better." He was exceedingly and quite
genuinely fraternal, not having his wife's faculty for nourishing a
feud.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

TWO.

The spectacular developments were rapid. In the afternoon Auntie Hamps,
Clara, Maggie, and Edwin were grouped around the bed of Darius. A fire
burned in the grate; flowers were on the dressing-table. An extra table
had been placed at the foot of the bed. The room was a sick-room.

Dr Heve had called, and had said that the patient's desire not to be
left alone was a symptom of gravity. He suggested a nurse, and when
Maggie, startled, said that perhaps they could manage without a nurse,
he inquired how. And as he talked he seemed to be more persuaded that a
nurse was necessary, if only for night duty, and in the end he went
himself to the new Telephone Exchange and ordered a nurse from the
Pirehill Infirmary Nursing Home. And the dramatic thing was that within
two hours and a half the nurse had arrived. And in ten minutes after
that it had been arranged that she should have Maggie's bedroom and that
she should take night duty, and in order that she might be fresh for the
night she had gone straight off to bed.

Then Clara had arrived, in spite of the illness of her baby, and Auntie
Hamps had forced herself up Trafalgar Road, in spite of her rheumatism.
And a lengthy confabulation between the women had occurred in the
dining-room, not about the invalid, but about what `she' had said, and
about the etiquette of treating `her,' and about what `she' looked like
and shaped like; `her' and `she' being the professional nurse. With a
professional nurse in it, each woma