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Rh carpet. It fidgets me something dreadful to see her, knowing her as I do. I’ve tried to cheat her; I’ve spread out the eiderdown. But the first time I did it—oh, she gave me such a look—holy it was, madam. “Did our Lord have an eiderdown, Ellen?” she said. But—I was younger at the time—I felt inclined to say, “No, but our Lord wasn’t your age, and he didn’t know what it was to have your lumbago.” Wicked—wasn’t it? But she’s too good, you know, madam. When I tucked her up just now and seen—saw her lying back, her hands outside and her head on the pillow—so pretty—I couldn’t help thinking, “Now you look just like your dear mother when I laid her out!”

. . . Yes, madam, it was all left to me. Oh, she did look sweet. I did her hair, soft-like, round her forehead, all in dainty curls, and just to one side of her neck I put a bunch of most beautiful purple pansies. Those pansies made a picture of her, madam! I shall never forget them. I thought to-night, when I looked at my lady, “Now, if only the pansies was there no one could tell the difference.”

. . . Only the last year, madam. Only after she’d got a little—well—feeble as you might say. Of course, she was never dangerous; she was the sweetest old lady. But how it took her was—she thought she’d lost something. She couldn’t keep still, she couldn’t 269