Jenny and May used to be met at the railway station by the Asylum brougham, which would bear them at a jogging pace up the straight melancholy avenue and set them down by the main entrance beside which hung the huge bell-chain whose clangor seemed to wake a multitude of unclean spirits. Often, as they walked nervously over the parquet of the lobby ample as a cloister, and past a succession of cheerful fire-places, Jenny would fancy she heard distant screams, horrid cries, traveling down the echoing corridors that branched off at every few paces. The nurse who was directing them would talk away pleasantly without apparent concern, without seeming to notice those patients allowed a measure of liberty. Jenny and May, however, could hardly refrain from shrieking out in terror as they shivered by these furtive, crouching shapes whose gaze was concentrated on things not seen by them. In the long ward at whose extreme end their mother's bed was situated, these alternations of embarrassment and fear became even more acute. Nearly all the occupants of the beds had shaved heads which gave them, especially the gray-haired women, a very ghastly appearance. Many of them would mutter audible comments on the two girls as they passed along, comparing them extravagantly to angels or to long-lost friends and relatives. Some would whimper in the terrible imagination that Jenny and May had arrived to hurt them. The girls were glad when the battery of mad eyes was passed and they could stand beside their mother's bed. "Here are your daughters come all this long way to see you, Mrs. Raeburn," the nurse would announce, and "Well, mother," or "How are you now, mother?" they would shyly inquire. Mrs. Raeburn could not recognize them, but would regard them from wide-open eyes that betrayed neither friendliness nor dislike. "Won't you say you're glad to see them?" the nurse would ask. Then sometimes Mrs. Raeburn would bury herself in the bedclothes to lie motionless until they had gone, or sometimes she would count on her fingers mysterious sums and ghostly numerals comprehended in the dim mid-region where her soul sojourned. If Jenny or May looked up in embarrassment, they would see all around them reasonless heads, some smiling and bobbing and beckoning, some grimacing horribly, and every one, save the listless head they loved best, occupied with mad speculations upon the identity of the two girls. After every visit, as hopelessly they were leaving the ward, the nurse would say: "I expect your mother will be better next time you come and able to talk a bit."