JULIA. A lost opportunity. Life is full of them.
LAURA. Then you mean to tell me that if I had indulged more then, I could indulge more now?
JULIA. Undoubtedly. As I never knew what it was to wear sables, I have to be content with ermine.
LAURA. Lor', Julia, how paltry!
(While this conversation has been going on, a gentle old lady has appeared upon the scene, unnoticed and unannounced. One perceives, that is to say, that the high-backed arm-chair beside the fire, sheltered by a screen from all possibility of draughts, has an occupant. Dress and appearance show a doubly septuagenarian character: at the age of seventy, which in this place she retains as the hall-mark of her earthly pilgrimage, she belongs also to the 'seventies' of the last century, wears watered silk, and retains under her cap a shortened and stiffer version of the side-curls with which she and all 'the sex' captivated the hearts of Charles Dickens and other novelists in their early youth. She has soft and indeterminate features, and when she speaks her voice, a little shaken by the quaver of age, is soft and indeterminate also. Gentle and lovable, you will be surprised to discover that she, also, has a will of her own; but for the present this does not show. From the dimly illumined corner behind the lamp her voice comes soothingly to break the discussion.)
OLD LADY. My dear, would you move the light a little nearer? I've dropped a stitch.
LAURA (starting up). Why, Mother dear, when did you come in?
JULIA (interposing with arresting hand). Don't! You mustn't try to touch her, or she goes.
LAURA. Goes?
JULIA. I can't explain. She is not quite herself. She doesn't always hear what one says.