'You always think me lazy when I'm tired; you are a tiresome contradictious creature,' she said.

'No, I don't, not always. But you would never be so tired if you were not so lazy, which thing is a paradox! And you look so strong and well to-night——'

'Strong! I never look strong, Anna; you might as well say robust at once. And you know I never look vulgar.'

'Dearest, who said a word about vulgarity? I only meant as much as I said. If to look strong means to be vulgar, then I am so and thank God for it. But you do look well to-night, and if Mr. Borlase saw you I'm certain he would say you were well. When are you going to delight our eyes by being in the parlour again, you beautiful woman? What an ugly duckling I am among you all, only Elias to comfort me with his "divine plain face of a woman." Perhaps mine may develop into that phase.'

She had taken up a brush from the dressing-table and loosened Mrs. Severn's hair. Brushed back from her forehead it swept the cushions in a dark cloudy mass. Her face was as pale as marble, for now there was no sunshine to tinge it. Its expression was one of statuesque repose. The perfect features admitted of no play of thought or feeling; they were not only blank as an empty page but suggested the inner blank of utter self-absorption. She looked dreamy and apathetic. Her eyes seemed larger but were no longer bright; their lustre was quenched as though an impalpable mist were drawn over them. One felt that whether in joy or sorrow her face would remain the same. But its beauty and refinement of chiselled repose was heightened into absolute fascination by that preoccupied indifference. It roused speculation. What had it been as a child's face? Had no emotion in girlhood overwhelmed the abstraction, or had some overwhelming emotion fixed it there? Would she grow old and still wear it? Death could not enhance its calm. Borlase, her doctor, giving her skilled attention in her hours of agony, felt with a strange shiver that even in her agony she was, in some strange way, impersonal—her epitaph, what could be more appropriate than this, 'She died as she had lived, coldly?'

And now Anna's deft fingers had gathered up the rich hair and were plaiting it into plaits to coil high on her head with a tiara-like effect. Mrs. Severn had raised herself to admit of this manipulation and watched it in a glass which Anna had put into her hands. When it was complete Anna stood back and surveyed her, her own face lit up with proud and enthusiastic delight. But this delight did not affect Mrs. Severn, who had been pondering over her last words.

'I don't believe in the divine getting inextricably mixed with the human,' she said.

'That's sheer perversity. You not only rob me of my crumb of comfort but make yourself out to be heterodox. I don't believe, moreover, that you ever have thought about it.'

'That is true.'

'Yes, you might say with Hodge, "I mostly thinks o' nowt." Hodge, digging, is excusable, for there's no inspiration in the mould where the only variety is in the size of the stones and the worms that he turns up. But you are so different. I'm sure you would be happier if you were busier—"Satan finds some mischief still for idle hands to do."'