"That was why I wanted them all to go away," Ellen took up the thought again. "I've been thinking all day about mother being with father and how glad he'll be to see her, and yet it seems as if I can feel her here. I thought if we kept still a while she'd make us understand what she wanted us to do."
"About what, Ellen?"
"About my going up to the city with you to board—it seems such a wasteful way to live somehow, just sitting around!"
"It isn't as expensive as keeping house," Peter told her, "and I want you to sit around, Ellen; women in Bloombury don't get enough of that I'm afraid."
"They don't. Did you see Ada Harvey to-day? Four children and two teeth out, and her not thirty. I guess you'd take better care of me than that, Peter,—only——"
"You think she wouldn't like it for you?"
"She thought such a lot of keeping up a home, Peter. It was like—like those Catholics burning candles. It seemed as if she thought you'd get something out of it if it was just going on, even if you didn't visit it more than two or three times a year. Lots of women feel that way, Peter, and I guess there must be something in it."
"There is something in it," Peter assured her.
"And if I go and board with you we'd have to break up everything——" She looked about on all the familiar mould of daily habit that was her world, and tears started afresh. "And we've got all this furniture." She moved her head toward the door of the front room and the parlour set that had been Peter's Christmas gift to them two years ago. "For all it was such a comfort to her to have it, it's as good as new. It seemed as if she thought you were the only one good enough to sit in it."
"Don't, Ellen."