dustman's work that I did not notice, as I should otherwise have done, the little indications of change in my mother's state. Indeed, I thought her stronger; she was slightly flushed, slightly more talkative. . . .
On Beltane Eve, and our Lowchester rummage being finished, I went along the valley to the far end of Swathinglea to help sort the stock of the detached group of pot-banks there--their chief output had been mantel ornaments in imitation of marble, and there was very little sorting, I found, to be done--and there it was nurse Anna found me at last by telephone, and told me my mother had died in the morning suddenly and very shortly after my departure.
For a while I did not seem to believe it: this obviously imminent event stunned me when it came, as though I had never had an anticipatory moment. For a while I went on working, and then almost apathetically, in a mood of half-reluctant curiosity, I started for Lowchester.
When I got there the last offices were over, and I was shown my old mother's peaceful white face, very still, but a little cold and stern to me, a little unfamiliar, lying among white flowers.
I went in alone to her, into that quiet room, and stood for a long time by her bedside. I sat down then and thought. . . .
Then at last, strangely hushed, and with the deeps of my loneliness opening beneath me, I
