good. Life
had given her so little beyond her meagre flesh and breakable bones that
it might have seemed impossible that she should satisfy the exorbitant
demands of her existence. But she had done that; she had reared a child,
and of the wet wood of poverty she had made a bright fire on her
hearthstone. She had done more than that: she had given her child a love
that was unstinted good living for the soul. And she had done more than
that: to every human being with whom she came in contact she had made a
little present of something over and above the ordinary decent feelings
arising from the situation, something which was too sensible and often
too roguish to be called tenderness, which was rather the handsomest
possible agreement with the other person's idea of himself, and a taking
of his side in his struggle with fate. This power of giving gifts was a
miracle of the loaves and fishes kind. "Mother, I did not desairve you!"
she cried. "I do wish I had been better to you!" And what had her mother
got for being a romantic, a poet, and a saint who worked miracles?
Nothing. This snoring death in a hospital was life's final award to her.
It could not possibly be so. She sat bolt upright, her mouth a round
hole with horror, restating the problem. But it was so. A virtuous woman
was being allowed to die without having been happy.

"Oh, mother, mother!" Ellen wailed, wishing they had not embarked on the
universe in such a leaky raft as this world, and was terrified to find
that her mother's hand made no answer to her pressure. "Nurse!" she
cried, and was enraged that no answer came from behind the screen, until
the door opened, and the nurse, looking pretentiously sensible, followed
the two doctors to the bed. She found it detestable that this cold
hireling should have detected her mother's plight before she did, and
when they took her away for a moment she stumbled round the screen,
whimpering, "Richard!" trying to behave well, but wanting to make just
enough fuss for him to realise how awful she was feeling.

Richard was sitting in front of the fire, rubbing the sleep out of his
eyes, but he jumped up alertly and gathered her to his arms.

"Richard, she's going!"

He could find no consolation to give her but a close, unvoluptuous
embrace. They stood silent, looking at the fire. "Is it not strange,"
she whispered, "that people really die?"

Richard did not in the least participate in this feeling. He merely
looked at he