First of all she made me put up my hair. She said I could not "boss the show" with it hanging down in two plaits. I reflected that were I to dress it as high as the Eiffel Tower I should not be able to boss her, but I did not mention this. Next she picked up her end of the chair and fairly ran with me down the stairs, nurse being bound to follow. I closed my eyes and held my breath, and when I opened them again I found myself staring at two gorgeous yellow flags decorated with portraits of the King and Queen. They had certainly not been there on the last occasion of my being in the drawing-room. The King wore a top-hat and carelessly held a cigar in his kid-gloved hand. The Queen, poor thing, was extremely decolletée, and wore mauve roses in her hair. The King, in morning dress, seemed out of place to me by the side of such grandeur on the part of his spouse.
Amelia broke into my musings.
"Thought we would have a bit of decoration, like the Jubilee, mum, in your honour, so I got them flags in the village."
She looked at me expectantly, and nurse sniffed.
The sniff annoyed me.
"It was extremely kind of you, Amelia," I said warmly. "Thank you very much."
"And the Hilkley, mum? The master got that, and we smuggled it into the house without your hearing anythink that was going on. And he's been wheeling it about hever since, trying to get the best persition, where the sun wouldn't catch your eyes, and where you could see the garden and the happle tree."
"I think it is lovely. Please lift me on to it, nurse. You will have to lift me to-morrow, Amelia," I said soothingly.
She watched the proceeding carefully, and with gentle hand arranged the cushions. The hand was rough and coarsened by hard work, but I felt that it would ever be ready to do my service.
I told them to leave me, as I wanted to be alone. I wanted to think. Now that I was downstairs I wished to review my position. The familiar aspect of the room, the furniture—which Amelia had pushed against the walls with an undesirable effort at neatness—conjured up a thousand pleasant memories. It had been on a snowy winter afternoon when Dimbie and I had first come home. How peaceful, how delicious the warm, fire-lit room had seemed after the rush of hotel life! We sat in the gloaming talking, planning out our lives, what we would do, where we would go; and now—ah! when should I cease to chafe at lying still? I thought of all the people who had had to lie so much—Mrs. Browning, Stevenson, and they had seemed so patient over years of ill-health—and my inactivity was but for one year, and yet I was not patient.