I nodded.
The nurse came in and told them to go. She then asked me if I was hungry.
"Very," I said.
She brought me some beef-tea and calf's-foot-jelly, remarking that they were easily taken and "would not hurt my throat."
That was why they were chosen, of course.
In the afternoon I had a visit from my Aunt Lavinia, who sat down with the remark that she would tell me all the news.
"You remember Esther?" she began.
Esther is my cousin and we were brought up together. How could I have forgotten her?
What she told me about Esther was of no consequence. Then she told me how she had nearly lost her luggage at Brighton—she quite thought she had lost it, in fact—but, as it happened, it turned up. "And if I had lost it," she said, "it would have been dreadful, for I had a number of dear Stella's beautiful sketches in one of my trunks. Quite irreplaceable. However, it is all right."
Then why tell me?