Page:The Confessions of a Well-Meaning Woman.djvu/135

 repeating itself, so to say. . . Hilda was a habit; and, when the habit was broken by influenza, she developed into a need. Culroyd had never taken much trouble before, but now he called every afternoon with flowers and wrote to her morning and evening. She was quite bewildered. A very simple child. . . When she was well enough to sit up on a sofa, Culroyd fumed with impatience to see her. He insisted on coming upstairs with me, though I told him I wasn’t at all sure. . . And so it proved: Hilda said she really wasn’t equal to meeting any one. The next day she was rather stronger, and I prevailed on her just to let him bring the flowers into her room.

“Aunt Ann, will you leave us alone for one moment?,” he asked.

“Really, Culroyd,” I said. . . . Oh, I know it’s done, but I was brought up in a different school. All this popping in and out of young people’s bedrooms. ..

“Please! I beg you!,” he said.

And then, before I knew where I was, he had kissed me on both cheeks, tapped at the door and disappeared. . . I went to see about some vases for the flowers; and, when I came back, he was on his knees by the bed and Hilda was stroking his head. My old heart