Mamma had waked up. She was saying she was better.
* * * * *
Mamma was better. She said she felt perfectly well. She could walk across the room. She could walk without your holding her.
It couldn't have been that. It couldn't, possibly. It was a tiny haemorrhage and it had dried up. It would have dried up just the same if you hadn't done anything. Those things don't happen.
What did happen was extraordinary enough. The queer dying. The freedom afterwards. The intense stillness, the intense energy; the certainty.
Something was there.
* * * * *
That horrible dream. Dorsy oughtn't to have made me go and see the old woman in the workhouse. A body without a mind. That's what made the dream come. It was Mamma's face; but she was doing what the old woman did.
"Mamma!"—That's the second time I've dreamed Mamma was dead.
The little lamb, lying on her back with her mouth open, making that funny noise: "Cluck-cluck," like a hen.