Assuring her she should have it all her own way, Vassie got her out of
the room and upstairs, while Katie heated water for a stone bottle to
be put at her feet. Ishmael and Boase went into the parlour and sat down
with grave faces.

"I don't understand it at all, Padre," said Ishmael. "This isn't a bit
like her. Of course, she's always been funny, but she's never done a
thing like this."

"It may be nothing but her annual attack of salvation," said the Parson
drily. "I shouldn't worry about it if I were you; only keep an eye on
her. She's not as young as she was, and it won't do her any good to be
running about getting wet through."

"She'll never listen to anything I say."

"Well, Vassie seems able to manage her all right. She's a most capable
girl, that!"

"She is indeed," said Ishmael, pleased at praise of his sister, whom he
knew Boase as a rule was apt to criticise silently rather than admire.
"I don't think my life here would be possible without Vassie. There are
times when I feel I want to take mother's head and knock it against the
wall. It sounds awful, but it's true. I want to knock it and hear the
crunch it would make. There! But you can't think what it's like
sometimes. One's soul is thrown at one, so to speak, morning, noon, and
night. I don't believe it's a good thing, anyway, to be always taking
one's soul out to feel its pulse. Except that mother's uneducated and
ignorant about it, she reminds me very much of a woman at that vicarage
in Somerset I used to go to sometimes in the holidays. She was the aunt