"I didn't," said Mrs. Greene, annoyed at being interrupted in that restless uncontrollable reverie which was all that remained to her of thought, but the innumerable little lines on her old cheeks smoothed into tranquillity as a sudden recollection of her granddaughter's last visit established itself momentarily in her mind. Lavinia had been very sweet and so pretty. That scarlet frock had seemed to darken her eyes and whiten her skin; even her hair shone as she sat on a footstool after dinner in front of the fire, her hands clasped round her knees, and talked about Martin endlessly, glowingly; about the two Martins, her husband and her son. A happy child Lavinia; Martin, a satisfactory grandson-in-law, and Martin, the little great-grandson, a pleasant thing to think about. Why was it that Lavinia's husband had not been able to come for the week-end with Lavinia? Mrs. Greene groped in her mind for the reason and then stumbled on it suddenly as one of the things Lavinia had spoken about with pride. Martin had been asked to go North to represent the firm on business. He had to interview two clients and persuade them to carry through an important deal, and it was a matter for congratulation that the negotiations had been entrusted to him. Old Mrs. Greene pondered. The beginnings of life, how terrible they were; each action, even the most impulsive and ill-considered, marching steadily on towards its inevitable result, and eliminating logically the possibility of any other result. For a moment, looking back, she saw her life move down its long determined track, marked erratically here and there by emotions, incidents and circumstances: her passionate love for Geoffrey, her husband; her passionate maternal love for Rodney and Edwin; the death of her father; her sons' marriages; her husband's sudden and widespread literary recognition; Edwin's death, and then her husband's death followed immediately by the birth of Lavinia's son, her only great-grandchild. She looked down at her thin old hands with the loose rings slipping up the fingers, and thought with clear lucidity: what changes are wrought by the alchemy of years in this poor human stuff. Immediately her age, her weariness, her thousand bodily discomforts, crowded into the present and engulfed the past. "Miss Dorset," she said querulously, "help me to bed, Miss Dorset, I'm tired." II When a hen's life is ended by the chopper the severed head falls to the ground, but the body with spattered wings awkwardly outstretched steps erratically this way and that, watched from the ground by its own surprised eyes until its ultimate surrender to the laws of death and gravity.