But the most marked change, after all, was in my mother herself. When Eric came he was staggered. "I'll believe in miracles after this!"--and we joked about the Dynamism of Mind. My mother had taken for granted that both Bettina and I would accept Aunt Josephine's invitation, though I said at once _I_ could not leave home. My mother put this aside with: "Bettina go alone! A wild idea." When the question came up again in Eric's presence I did not press it far. But, going downstairs, I asked him how _was_ I to put it to my mother? "Put what?" he asked. "Why, the fact that we can't leave her. Or, at least, that I can't." I agreed Betty must go. "So must you," he said. My heart beat faster. His villeggiatura was near the end. London, for me, meant Eric. "You need the change," he said, "more than Betty does." "You forget," I said, a little sadly, "what we've been facing here. The specialist coming----" "Well, he will find she has rallied." Nevertheless, she was in no condition, Eric said, to be crossed. Had she not told me herself that my first duty was to take care of Betty? That was not how he would put it--all the same, the change would do me good. Then a word about our "trustworthy servants." In any event I was not to say any more about not going, till we had seen the "London chap." * * * * * She went on quite wonderfully. We were positively gay again--she and I and Bettina--the three of us laying plans. We talked about clothes, and planned how we should look very nice on very little money. When the great specialist came, he found my mother sitting up in a bed covered with old evening-gowns, old laces, and embroidered muslins; things she had worn long ago in India, and which should help to make us brave for our first London season. Smart little blouses, morning-gowns and afternoon-gowns, could be made in the house or in the village. But who was worthy to make an evening-frock fit for London? My mother was much more concerned about this than about the great specialist, whom she received rather as a friend of Eric's. He echoed all that Eric had said. * * * * * My mother had made me write to Aunt Josephine on the evening of the same day that brought her letter. I did not tell anyone, but I put off posting my answer till the London doctor had gone. My letter was not only thanks and acceptance. I felt I ought, in common civility, to try to make some more or less intelligent rejoinder to the odd part of my aunt's letter. And this modest effort seemed not to displease her. For she replied in eight pages of cloudy metaphysic and a highly lucid cheque. The cheque alone supported us in our attempt to grapple with those eight bewildering pages. The first introduced us, by way of the Psychology of the Solar Plexus, to the Self-Superlative: