‘Not that of being ignorant for years together where you are? of not knowing what you are doing? whether you may be in want? whether you may be ill? if you may have died----’ ‘On some roadside, or in some hospital, nobody knowing anything about me,’ said Mrs. Brown, with a harsh little laugh, ‘and not a bad thing either, and probably the way it will happen at the last. But I should always, unless it was sudden, take care that you knew. It is a curious thing,’ she said, laughing again, and winking her eyes rapidly, as if to shake off some moisture, ‘that you and I, two such women as we are, not of the soft kind, should in a sort of a way, not caring much for anybody else, love each other, Cecile!’ We need not be sentimental and talk of it at least,’ said the other; ‘I see nothing wonderful in it. With others always contradiction and contrariety, but between you and me understanding--even when you take upon you, so much younger as you are, not to approve.’ ‘Oh, I must always reserve that power--if I were only four, instead of forty,’ said Mrs. Brown. ‘Forty and a little more.’ ‘If you think I am in any danger of forgetting the little more--forty-six--a sensible age. You would not imagine at that discreet period of existence that my chief friend in Watcham should be a young man.’ Mrs. Swinford shrugged her shoulders as if nothing could be more perfectly indifferent to her. ‘Who keeps me informed of all that is going on,’ she added, after a moment’s pause. ‘Ah!’ Even this, however, did not awake the great lady’s interest; for what were the village news to her? ‘I hear of Leo’s proceedings. He seems to mean to turn everything upside down.’ ‘The foolish boy! he has got it into his head that he has neglected his duties. What are his duties? I know not. One, that he does not regard, is to make life as pleasant as time and circumstances will admit to his mother. It is not much I ask. To reside where I can breathe. To see a few people whom I like, who understand me. To be kept from sordid calculations and cares. What he thinks more important is to come back here to look after his people, as he calls them. His people! How are they his people? They pay him rent, that is all. And he thinks more of them than of what is comfort and life to me!’ ‘I feel very much for you, Cecile, in many ways,’ said Mrs. Brown, not without a hidden tone of satire, ‘but do you know, I cannot see that you are much deficient in point of comfort here.’