for his ownership of things of which they cannot even hope to rob
him.'

She supposed that the tenants and servants would have to be fed on the
occasion of a marriage. She believed it was their one idea of enjoying
themselves; but she begged her steward not to bother her with details
when he had gone into the question of roasting an ox whole. Having
dismissed him with a few brief orders Mrs. Ogilvie went to her
writing-table. 'I may as well get over all the disagreeable and odious
things in one morning,' she said to herself.

Her writing-table was placed against a wall on which hung a mirror, and
she sat down opposite it. According to a custom she had, she directed
the envelopes first, before beginning to write her letters. Her
writing-table was always littered with addressed envelopes of notes
which she meant to write some day when she felt in the mood for writing.

She paused now when she had written the words: 'To be given to my son
at my death;' and, screwing up her face into her twisted smile, she
said to herself, 'How absurd and melodramatic it sounds!' Then she
took a sheet of notepaper and began to write. The first few lines
flowed easily enough, and then Mrs. Ogilvie's pen traced the letters
more slowly on the page. Once she paused altogether, and said aloud to
her image in the mirror opposite her escritoire, 'What a fool I am!'
and then stooped again over her task. The sprawling writing had hardly
covered half a sheet of notepaper when the red-gold head with its crown
of plaits was raised again, and the woman in the mirror looked at her
with a face that was suddenly livid. Her lips were white and were
drawn back somewhat from her teeth; and Mrs. Ogilvie, in the midst of
pain, recognized first of all how hideous she looked.

The pen dropped from her fingers, and she pushed her chair back from
the writing-table and went over to the fireplace and lay down on the
sofa. The day was cold, and Mrs. Ogilvie shivered and drew a cover
over her feet. 'When this is over,' she thought, 'I will ring and have
the fire lighted.'

She looked at the clock on the mantelpiece and calculated deliberately
how long the paroxysm would probably last. She had always regarded
pain as an animate thing which had to be fought with, and she had never
failed in courage when she met it, nor moaned when, as now for the
first time, she was beaten by it. The clock seemed to tick more
leisurely to-day, and the time passed very