She found a little parcel on her dressing-table one evening containing six knitted ties and a note, which said: "For my Joan to wear at Cambridge. I knitted them when I couldn't sleep." Joan laid down her head and cried bitterly.
In so many little ways her mother was showing thought for her. She found her going through her clothes one day. "Mother, what on earth are you doing?"
"Just looking over your things, dearest. I see you'll need new stockings and a new hat or two. Oh! and, Joan, do you really think these vests are warm enough? I believe Cambridge is very damp."
She began to seek out Elizabeth, and whereas, before, she had contented herself more or less with generalities regarding Cambridge and Joan's life with her friend, she now appeared to want a detailed description of everything.
"Elizabeth," she said one day, "come and sit here by me. I want you to tell me all about your flat. Describe it to me, tell me what it looks like, and then I can picture you two to myself after Joan's gone. Is it sunny? Where is the flat? Isn't it somewhere near the Edgware Road?"
"In Bloomsbury," said Elizabeth rather shortly; then she saw that Joan was listening, and added hastily: "Let me see, is it sunny? Yes, I think it is, rather; it's a very tiny affair, you know."
"Oh, but big enough for you two, I expect; I wonder if I shall ever see it."
"Of course you will, Mother," said Joan eagerly. "Why we expect you to come up and stay with us; don't we, Elizabeth?"
Elizabeth assented, but Mrs. Ogden shook her head. "No, not that, my dear, you won't want to be bothered with me; but it's a darling thought of yours all the same. And now, Elizabeth, tell me all about Cambridge. When I'm alone here in the evenings I shall want to be able to make pictures of the place where my Joan is working."
Elizabeth felt uncomfortable and suspicious; was Mrs. Ogden making a fool of her, of them both? She tried to describe the town and then the colleges, with the Backs running down to the river, but even to herself her voice sounded hard and unsympathetic.