And so she rattled on.
"You don't say anything," she said at last.
It was true. I had said nothing. I told her what the doctor instructed.
"Quite right," she remarked. "I wish other people even in good health could have the same prescription."
Just before dinner my brother came in again. "You've had Aunt Lavinia here," he said.
I had.
"Getting quite grey, I thought," he said.
I had noticed it too.
He was smoking, and while he was with me he emptied his pipe and filled it again. He thought he had knocked the burning ash in the grate, but it had fallen in the turn-up of his right trouser-leg.
Should I tell him? I wondered. He would, of course, find it out from the smell, but meanwhile the cloth would be burned through.