"You go, my dear," she said constantly now. "You go, and God bless you and take care of you, my Joan." She seemed to be all gentleness and resignation. "After all, I'm not as young as I was, and I'm dull and tiresome, I know." She had grown thinner in the past few weeks, and her stoop was more pronounced. Joan knew that she must be sleeping badly, for she could hear her moving about her room well into the small hours. Her appetite, always poor, appeared to fail completely. "Oh! Mother, do try to eat something. Are you ill?" "No, no, my dear, of course not, but I don't feel very hungry." "Mother, I must know; is your head worrying you again?" "I didn't say it was; what makes you ask?" "Because you sit pressing it with your hand so often. Does it ache?" "A little, but it's nothing at all; don't worry, darling; go on with your studying." Joan often discovered her now crying quietly by herself, but as she came in her mother would make as though to whisk the tears away. "Mother, you're crying!" "No, I'm not, dearest; my eyes are a little weak, that's all." Towards Elizabeth she appeared to have changed even more completely. Now she was always urging her to come to meals. "You'll want to talk things over with Joan," she would say. "Please stop to lunch to-day, Elizabeth; you two must have a thousand plans to discuss." She spoke quite openly to Elizabeth about Joan's chances of taking a scholarship at Cambridge, and what their life together would be in London. She sighed very often, it is true, and sometimes her eyes would fill with tears, but when this happened she would smile bravely. "Don't take any notice of me, Elizabeth; I'm just a foolish old woman." Joan's heart ached with misery. This new, submissive, gentle mother was like the pathetic figure of her childhood; a creature difficult to resist, and still more difficult to coerce. Something so utterly helpless that it called up all the chivalry and protectiveness of which her nature was capable. She found a little parcel on her dressing-table one evening containing six knitted ties and a note, which said: "For my Joan to wear at Cambridge. I knitted them when I couldn't sleep." Joan laid down her head and cried bitterly. In so many little ways her mother was showing thought for her. She found her going through her clothes one day. "Mother, what on earth are you doing?" "Just looking over your things, dearest. I see you'll need new stockings and a new hat or two. Oh! and, Joan, do you really think these vests are warm enough? I believe Cambridge is very damp." She began to seek out Elizabeth, and whereas, before, she had contented herself more or less with generalities regarding Cambridge and Joan's life with her friend, she now appeared to want a detailed description of everything.