Yet it was on that very day that Tibbie had sat in it with Baby Steve, that the chair had finally, so to speak, thrown up its job. It had been a brave chair, taking things as they came, turning when required into a railway-train or a ’bus, a chopping-block, perhaps, or even a stand for a machine. It had been made of sound stuff by sensible, skilled hands, and it showed itself worthy to its latest hour. But, as it is with the best people, so it was with the good chair; all in a moment it had begun to grow old. Quite suddenly it began to show its scratches and dents, and to lose the last of its fine gloss. It began to creak when a hand was laid on its back, as if it had been the giver resenting a sudden touch. Presently they discovered it to be worm-eaten, and knew then that it “wouldn’t be long.” Even then, however, it had managed to hold together, until this last day when it had decided to cease. Perhaps the recent rains had got into its old bones, or else the weight of the new generation was greater than it could face. Anyhow, Tibbie had sprung to her feet, saying “Mother! I do believe, Mother ... the old chair’s giving way!” and as they had stared at it, almost afraid, it had softly released a leg, and then laid itself down with the air of a live thing gently preparing itself for death.... They had stared at it for quite a long time before they had dared to touch it, and Tibbie had cried a little and laughed as well. It was a chair of character, she had said, and it knew its mind. It had been made for her as a child, and would serve no other, not even her own. And all the time that she had stared at the determined, absurd little chair, Stevie had stared at herself with his immutably sad eyes.... But again it was not this particular Tibbie who was present to Mrs. Clapham while she sat and wept. Her mind rejected that Tibbie, just as the chair had rejected her, and as it rejected her even now. Lobsided, battered and old, it yet refused to evoke any picture but that of the spring-flower of a child. It spoke of Tibbie as clothes speak of their wearers after they are gone; it looked like Tibbie—it _was_ Tibbie, because of that picture of her which it kept alive.... Mrs. Clapham wept and wept, dropping her head on her arms; looked at the chair that was Tibbie and wept ... looked away and wept ... looked back and wept ... and wept, and wept, and wept, _and_ wept.... Presently, after she had been crying for ever and ever, as it seemed, but in reality barely for half an hour, there came the same birdlike tap at the door that had startled her in the morning. Now, however, she scarcely noticed it, and that part of her brain which did chance to take it in wiped it out again instantly as some sign from a lost world. The door opened gently at last as she did not answer, and Mrs. Tanner advanced with brave if birdlike movements into the room.