Mrs. Greene had spoken with long pauses between the sentences. When she had finished she closed her eyes and sat upright and motionless, drained of colour, teeth and hair assailed by the greedy years, but with the lovely structure of jaw and cheekbone more visible under the sagging skin than it had ever been under firm flesh. "I don't think you should let Mrs. Rodney's letter depress you," hazarded Miss Dorset at last. "If you decide to go I know both she and Mr. Rodney will make all arrangements for your comfort." "Everybody makes arrangements for my comfort," said Mrs. Greene harshly. "And nobody can achieve it for me." She spoke with her eyes still shut, and there was bitter resignation in the line of her mouth. "We do try," ventured Miss Dorset gently. At the sound of her troubled voice Mrs. Greene lifted her lids and smiled. "I know you do," she said, and her voice had regained its ring. "I'm an ungrateful, cantankerous old woman, and I may last like this for years." The crudity of the last sentence was the signal for Miss Dorset to change the subject. "Would you like to get up now?" she asked. "You have a nice full day before you: it's so sunny this morning that I think a little walk will do you good, and then you remember Mrs. Hugh is coming for to-night on her way up to town. She arrives at 4.15, and I've ordered the car to meet her." "I'd forgotten Sarah was coming to-day," said Mrs. Greene. "I'll be glad to see her. I wonder if she has heard from Edith; she'll be no more pleased than I am about this ridiculous party." All her good humour came back at the malicious and delightful thought of imparting the unwelcome news to her sister-in-law and discussing with her the unreasonableness of such a plan. "Sarah will see that it's a bad idea," she repeated confidently. "There'll we be, three widows and three wives, each of us supposed to stand for something, and the whole idea quite false. I'm not an old Greene grandmother any more than Edith is a Greene mother and Jessica a young Greene wife; I'm Margaret Hill, and Jessica is Jessica Deane, and we married men of the same name and the same blood, but nobody but Edith would ever expect that to link us up in a chain." "I know you will enjoy a talk with Mrs. Hugh," said Miss Dorset. "Shall I put her in the usual room, or do you think she likes the view from the front better? It isn't such a good room, of course." "Put her in the front room. Sarah is like me; she likes to look out on a good view and a wide space, and so long as the bed is comfortable she won't notice anything else. And now help me up, please."