, she considers, is hers._)

LAURA. I daresay it was only somebody's box from the luggage-rack. I've
known that happen. I don't suppose for a minute that it was a railway
accident.

(_She unfurls the tissue paper of the box and takes out the wreath._)

JULIA. Why talk about it?

LAURA. Anyway, nothing has happened to these. 'With fondest love from
Martha.' H'm. Pretty!

JULIA. Martha, would you like to go upstairs with your things? And you,
Laura?

MARTHA. I will presently, when I've got warm.

LAURA. Not yet. Martha, why was I put into that odious shaped coffin?
More like a canoe than anything. I said it was to be straight.

MARTHA. I'd nothing to do with it, Laura. I wasn't there. You know I
wasn't.

LAURA. If you'd come when I asked you, you could have seen to it.

MARTHA. You didn't tell me you were dying.

LAURA. Do people tell each other when they are dying? They don't _know_.
I told you I wasn't well.

MARTHA. You always told me that, just when I'd settled down somewhere
else. . . . Of course I'd have come if I'd known! (_testily_).

JULIA. Oh, surely we needn't go into these matters now! Isn't it better
to accept things?

LAURA. I like to have my wishes attended to. What was going to be done
about the furniture? (_This to Martha._) You know, I suppose, that I left
it to the two of you--you and Edwin?

MARTHA. We were going to give it to Bella, to set up house with.

LAURA. _That's_ not what I intended. I meant you to keep on the house and
live there. Why couldn't you?

MARTHA (_with growing annoyance_). Well, _that's_ settled now!

LAURA. It wasn't for Arabella. Arabella was never a favourite of mine.
Why should Arabella have my furniture?

MARTHA. Well, you'd better send word, and have it stored up for you till
doomsday! Edwin doesn't want it; he's got enough of his own.

LAURA (_in a sleek, injured voice_). Julia, I'm going upstairs to take my
things off.

JULIA. Very well, Laura.

(_And Laura makes her injured exit._)

So you've been with Edwin, and his family?

MARTHA. Yes. I'm never well there; but I wanted the change.

JULIA. You mean, you had been staying with Laura?

MARTHA. I always go and stay with her, as long as I can--three months,
I'm supposed to. But this year--well, I couldn't manage with it.

JULIA. Is she so much more difficult than she used to be?

MARTHA. Of course, I don't know what she's like here.

JULIA. Oh, she has been very much herself--_poor_ Laura