Annie said "Yes 'm," very pleasantly, and yielded about the lamp. She told cook afterwards, with some amusement, "She's funny, I've always said that, but," she added, "I've known some I should say was funnier."
This opinion may be worth recording, as it was one of the highest tributes to her character Henrietta ever received.
On the whole during those latter years she improved, and in the general reformation of her character she raised the standard of her reading. She confined herself in the mornings and afternoon to mildly scandalous memoirs of Frenchwomen and biographies of Church dignitaries, keeping her costume novels for the evening.
She often saw Evelyn, and they talked of the past, but they never regained the almost heavenly intimacy of that night. They seldom met without some disagreeableness from Henrietta, and she did not like the boys, there was nothing of Evelyn in them, while they for their part could not imagine why their mother cared for their aunt Henrietta. It was a continual struggle for Evelyn not to be impatient with her; much as she longed to, she could not keep on the high plane of devotion, which had brought such happiness to both.
CHAPTER XIII
Henrietta died when she was sixty-three. Her father and stepmother were long dead, also her second brother, whom none of the family had seen for years. When her relations were sent for, it was very cold weather in January, and Louie and Minna did not obey the summons. They deplored it continually afterwards, and explained to one another how appalling the wind had been, and what care they had to take for their children's sake, and how Henrietta had frightened them so much the year before by sending for them when there was no need, that they naturally could not be expected to realize that this time it really was important.
William came, looking more benevolent than ever with his very becoming white hair. Henrietta said that she thought it was the last time she should see him, but he assured her it was just the cold which had pulled her down a little, and she would be all right again as soon as the wind changed. "It's wretched, knocks everybody up." He looked so hearty and mundane that it almost seemed, when he was in the room, as if there could not be such a thing as death.
They talked about the drought last summer, and William's son, who was a planter in Ceylon, and the noise of the motor-buses in London, until William said he must go for his train. He was allowing a quarter of an hour too much time, for he was able to stay and talk a little while with the doctor, who called when he was there.
"There isn't any chance, you say."