hter-in-law," saddling her, so to speak,
with the responsibility for Gilbert's ill-advised marriage. To her
grandchildren she would refer to Rosalind as "your sister-in-law," or
"poor Gilbert's wife."

"The bathe was worth it," said Mrs. Hilary, swinging up to high spirits
again. "It was a glorious bathe. But I _have_ got rheumatics."

So Neville stayed on at The Gulls that night, to massage her mother's
joints, and Pamela and Nan went back to Hoxton and Chelsea by the evening
train. Pamela had supper, as usual, with Frances Carr, and Nan with Barry
Briscoe, and they both talked and talked, about all the things you don't
talk of in families but only to friends.

7

Neville meanwhile was saying to Grandmama in the drawing-room at The
Gulls, after Mrs. Hilary had gone to bed, "I wish mother could get some
regular interest or occupation. She would be much happier. Are there no
jobs for elderly ladies in the Bay?"

"As many in the Bay," said Grandmama, up in arms for the Bay, "as
anywhere else. Sick-visiting, care committees, boys' and girls' classes,
and so on. I still keep as busy as I am able, as you know."

Neville did know. "If mother could do the same...."

"Mother can't. She's never been a rector's wife, as I have, and she
doesn't care for such jobs. Mother never did care for any kind of work
really, even as a girl. She married when she was nineteen and found the
only work she was fitted for and interested in. That's over, and there's
no other she can turn to. It's common enough, child, with women. They
just have to make the best of it, and muddle through somehow till the
end."

"You were different, Grandmama, weren't you? I mean, you were never at a
loss for things to do."

Grandmama's thin, delicate face hardened for a moment into grim lines.

"At a loss--yes, I was what you call at a loss twenty years ago, when
your grandfather died. The meaning was gone out of life, you see. I was
sixty-four. For two years I was cut adrift from everything, and did
nothing but brood and find trivial occupations to pass the time somehow.
I lived on memories and emotions; I was hysterical and peevish and bored.
Then I realised it wouldn't do; that I might have twenty years and more
of life before me, and that I must do something with it. So I took up
again all of my old work that I could. It was the hardest thing I ever
did. I hated it at first. Then I got interested again, and it has kept me
going all these years, tho