Sometimes, but very seldom, she paused here and asked, ‘For what?’ Sometimes, but very seldom, it seemed to her as if she spent her whole life being strengthened and refreshed for an effort that never had to be made, an adventure that never happened. All those meals,--to what end was she so carefully, four times a day, nourished? ‘The machine must be stoked,’ George would say, pressing her to eat, for he believed in abundant food, ‘or it won’t work.’ More preparations for exertions that never were made. Nothing but preparations.... Sometimes, but very seldom, she thought like this; then the thought was lulled to sleep again, lapped quiet by the gentle waves of affection, devotion, dependence that encircled her. She made people happy; they made her happy in return. It was excessively simple, excessively easy. It really appeared that nothing more was needed than good nature. Not to be cross: was that the secret? As she didn’t know what it was like to feel cross, to be impelled to behave disagreeably or to want to criticise anybody, it was all very easy. Wherever she was there seemed to gather round her a most comfortable atmosphere of sunny calm. So, she sometimes but very seldom thought, do vegetables flourish in well-manured kitchen gardens. George called her throughout his life his little comfort. He had no trouble with her, ever. His gratitude for this increased as he grew busier and richer and had to be more and more away from home. To think of his Catherine, safe and contented, waiting affectionately down in the country for his return, looking forward, thinking of him, depending on him for all her comforts as he depended on her for all his joy, filled him with a satisfaction that never grew stale. His only fear was lest she should marry disastrously after he was dead. He was so much older. It was bad to be so much older, and in all likelihood have to die and leave her. He did what he could to save her by a most carefully-thought-out will; and when the horrid moment arrived and he was forced to go, at least he knew his wing would still, in a way, stretch protectingly over her little head, that he had made her safe from predatory fortune-hunters by making her poor. The last thing he did, the very last thing, was solemnly to bless and thank her; and then with extremest reluctance, for it was a miserable thing to have to do, George died.