One perceives, that is
to say, that the high-backed arm-chair beside the fire, sheltered by a
screen from all possibility of draughts, has an occupant. Dress and
appearance show a doubly septuagenarian character: at the age of seventy,
which in this place she retains as the hall-mark of her earthly
pilgrimage, she belongs also to the 'seventies' of the last century, wears
watered silk, and retains under her cap a shortened and stiffer version of
the side-curls with which she and all 'the sex' captivated the hearts of
Charles Dickens and other novelists in their early youth. She has soft and
indeterminate features, and when she speaks her voice, a little shaken by
the quaver of age, is soft and indeterminate also. Gentle and lovable, you
will be surprised to discover that she, also, has a will of her own; but
for the present this does not show. From the dimly illumined corner behind
the lamp her voice comes soothingly to break the discussion_.)
OLD LADY. My dear, would you move the light a little nearer? I've dropped
a stitch.
LAURA (_starting up_). Why, Mother dear, when did you come in?
JULIA (_interposing with arresting hand_). Don't! You mustn't try to
touch her, or she goes.
LAURA. Goes?
JULIA. I can't explain. She is not quite herself. She doesn't always hear
what one says.
LAURA (_assertively_). She can hear me. (_To prove it, she raises
her voice defiantly._) Can't you, Mother?
MRS. R. (_the voice perhaps reminding her_).
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