Page:I, Mary MacLane (1917).pdf/232

 hip. When you were twenty-five she was eleven, a beautiful frail child. You lived in two rooms above a linen-draper's and you supported the two of you by weaving and calendering cloths for the shop-keeper, and by illuminating missals and manuscripts when you could get that work. For a very poor wage, but living was cheap. All the time you took zealous care of your sister. Your heart was bound up in her—you adored her.'

Said I: 'I know that. Tell me what we did—how we lived—how we loved each other.'

Said the Soul: 'In the summer evenings you often walked out along quiet London streets—the sister sometimes with a crutch and your arm about her, sometimes in a rolling chair, whilst you walked beside her pushing it. Your father had educated you in an erratic fashion. You had a deal of desultory knowledge—what is called knowledge—and you educated the young sister in the same manner. Often it was of the poets—Latin, English, Italian, and of histories and sciences and arts—what odd comprehensive bits you knew—that you two talked as you sauntered in the bright late English sunlight. Or you talked of the little details of your joint life. Sometimes you sat together—you holding her close in your arms—by a window in your darkening front room, and watched the children at play in the com-