in my father's time."


Harriett Frean was not what she used to be. She was aware of the creeping
fret, the poisons and obstructions of decay. It was as if she had parted
with her own light, elastic body, and succeeded to somebody else's that
was all bone, heavy, stiff, irresponsive to her will. Her brain felt
swollen and brittle, she had a feeling of tiredness in her face, of
infirmity about her mouth. Her looking-glass showed her the fallen yellow
skin, the furrowed lines of age.

Her head dropped, drowsy, giddy over the week's accounts. She gave up even
the semblance of her housekeeping, and became permanently dependent on
Maggie. She was happy in the surrender of her responsibility, of the
grown-up self she had maintained with so much effort, clinging to Maggie,
submitting to Maggie, as she had clung and submitted to her mother.

Her affection concentrated on two objects, the house and Maggie, Maggie
and the house. The house had become a part of herself, an extension of her
body, a protective shell. She was uneasy when away from it. The thought of
it drew her with passion: the low brown wall with the railing, the flagged
path from the little green gate to the front door. The square brown front;
the two oblong, white-framed windows, the dark-green trellis porch
between; the three windows above. And the clipped privet bush by the
trellis and the may tree by the gate.

She no longer enjoyed visiting her friends. She set out in peevish
resignation, leaving her house, and when she had sat half an hour with
Lizzie or Sarah or Connie she would begin to fidget, miserable till she
got back to it again; to the house and Maggie.