alas for me, I was afraid.

In those last weeks, though we did not know it, my sister was dying
on her feet. For many years she had been giving her life, a little
bit at a time, for another year, another month, latterly for
another day, of her mother, and now she was worn out. 'I'll never
leave you, mother.' - 'Fine I know you'll never leave me.' I
thought that cry so pathetic at the time, but I was not to know its
full significance until it was only the echo of a cry. Looking at
these two then it was to me as if my mother had set out for the new
country, and my sister held her back. But I see with a clearer
vision now. It is no longer the mother but the daughter who is in
front, and she cries, 'Mother, you are lingering so long at the
end, I have ill waiting for you.'

But she knew no more than we how it was to be; if she seemed weary
when we met her on the stair, she was still the brightest, the most
active figure in my mother's room; she never complained, save when
she had to depart on that walk which separated them for half an
hour. How reluctantly she put on her bonnet, how we had to press
her to it, and how often, having gone as far as the door, she came
back to stand by my mother's side. Sometimes as we watched from
the window, I could not but laugh, and yet with a pain at my heart,
to see her hasting doggedly onward, not an eye for right or left,
nothing in her head but the return. There was always my father in
the house, than whom never was a more devoted husband, and often
there were others, one daughter in particular, but they scarce
dared tend my mother - this one snatched the cup jealously from
their hands. My mother liked it best from her. We all knew this.
'I like them fine, but I canna do without you.' My sister, so