Page:The Confessions of a Well-Meaning Woman.djvu/33

 tempted to say “Well done, thou good and faithful servant”. . . I have lost the thread. . . Ah, yes! I was saying that my nerve had entirely gone. . . I was so much exhausted that I fell into some kind of trance. Goodness knows the thousand and one things that go to make up a dream. . . Opposites. . . All that sort of thing. . . I dreamt most wonderfully about Will and—I wonder if you can guess? Phyllida! They have been brought up together—cousins! She is young, high-spirited, very, very attractive; and, thanks to Brackenbury’s marriage, she is well-dowered. . . I said to myself in the dream “If she could marry happily some one in her own station. . .” And then I seemed to see her with Will. . . It was but a phantasy. I should do nothing to encourage it, I am not at all sure that I even approve. . . Alas for reality! Phyllida came and bullied me for my “interference.”. . But I told you about that. And, the day before the operation, Arthur asked whether I really thought it was necessary. Like that! At the eleventh hour!

“I don’t trust these surgeons,” he said. “They make operations.” At first I was touched. ..