Mrs. Purkiss sighed compassionately and vowed she would forgive her nieces under the circumstances, would even spend the evening in an attempt to console the sad household of Hagworth Street. "But I want to be alone, and so does May." "Well, I always used to say you was funny girls, and this proves my words true. Anyone would think you'd be glad to talk about your poor mother to her only sister. But, no, girls nowadays seem to have no civilized feelings. Slap-dashing around. In and out. Nothing but amuse themselves, the uncultivated things, all the time. No wonder the papers carry on about it. But I'm not going to stay where I'm not wanted and don't need any innuendives to go." Here Mrs. Purkiss rose from the chair and, having in a majestic sweep of watered silk attained the door, paused to deliver one severe speculation. "If you treated your poor mother as you behave to your aunt, I'm not surprised she got ill. If my Percy or my Claude behaved like you--well, there, but they don't, thank goodness." Jenny listened quite unmoved to the swishing descent of her aunt. She was merely glad to think her rudeness had been effectual in driving her away, and followed her downstairs very soon in order to guarantee her departure. One by one the funereal visitors went their ways. One by one they faded into the sapphire dusk of April. Some went in sable parties like dilatory homing cattle, browsing as they went on anecdotes of the dead. On the tail of the last exit, their father, somewhat anxiously, as if afraid of filial criticism, went also. He sat for a long time, as he told them afterwards, without drinking anything, the while he stared at his silk hat enmeshed in crape, and when he did drink he called for stout. The two girls stayed alone in the parlor with little heart to light the gas, with little desire to talk over the mournful buzz which had filled the house all day. The lodgers being gone, no responsibility of general illumination rested with Jenny or May. Soon, however, they moved in accord to the kitchen, where on each side of the glowing fire they listened to the singing of a kettle and the tick of the American clock. An insistent loneliness penetrated their souls. In that hour of sorrow and twilight, they drew nearer to one another than ever before. Outside a cat was wailing, and far down the road a dog, true to superstition, howled at intervals. The kitchen was intolerably changed by Mrs. Raeburn's absence. Jenny suddenly realized how lonely May must have been during those weeks of illness and suspense. She herself had had the distractions of the theater, but May must have moped away each heavy moment. "I wonder where Ruby is now?" said Jenny suddenly. "Fancy! I wonder." They sighed. The old house in Hagworth Street seemed, with the death of its laughing mistress, to have lost its history, to have become merely one of a dreary row. "Oh, May, look," said Jenny. "There's her apron never even gone to the wash."