One morning when Mr. Waring was thus engaged, his wife sped away in a half furtive fashion and shut herself into the children’s nursery. Kneeling down by the drawers she began to pull out great heaps of soft white lawn and lace and creamy flannel, then with much puzzled doubt she set to sorting the things into little heaps, each after its kind; when that was done she went softly out, and in a few minutes returned with old Mary. “Has my daughter provided herself with those little things?” she asked nervously. “I don’t know, ma’am, I was thinking of speaking to her on the subject.” “These are good, are they not, the lace seems to me to be real and I do not see any holes?” “Lord, ma’am, they are like new, it isn’t likely that I’d have my clothes torn after two babies, I’ve brought a set through six, ma’am!” “Do the fashions in these things change, Mary?” “Bless you, no, ma’am! Set up long-clothes babies with fashions!” “Mary, would you be good enough to get me a pretty basket?” “You couldn’t have a prettier one than this one, ma’am,” said Mary, pulling out the old lace and muslin one that had held the belongings of her own baby children. Mrs. Waring took up the thing and examined it curiously, and thought of the awe with which she used to regard it. “Do babies nowadays use these things?” she asked. “Lord, ma’am, yes, and will till the millennium.” Mrs. Waring put the little things in delicately, one by one. “Now, Mary, I will take them to my daughter,” she said with a little quiver of her lips. She knocked gently at her daughter’s door. As it happened she could hardly have come at a worse time. Gwen had just escaped from her father; besides, for three weeks now, there had come no news from Strange, and in spite of herself she was all on edge with unnamed terrors. When Mrs. Waring’s knock came, she was sitting listlessly looking out of the window. “Oh, I am so sickeningly tired,” she said, “and I wish she would not always knock in that tremulous way.” She hardened her face and threw the door open. Her mother gave a quick little swallow and came forward falteringly, while Gwen still held the door open and watched her. “Will you please close the door, dear Gwen?” she asked. Gwen complied, and then came towards the basket and lifted one of the white frilly things carelessly. Suddenly the truth flashed on her and she trembled with indignation, while her mother stood pathetically before her, like a criminal at the bar. Gwen was the first to speak; her mother’s face touched her in a vague way. “Won’t you sit down, mother?” she said, in her cold gentle voice. “Do you wish me to have these things? I am so very much obliged to you. I ordered some before I left London, but I believe it is always better to have a reserve stock of everything.” “I thought I would like to see a child of yours in the little things,” faltered her mother.