house but a servant. In reality the guest, you see, had arrived on the train at noon, but that we did not know and the servant did not tell us. We hurried up stairs to undress and then went down stairs and into a shed to bathe. At that time people had no bath-tubs in their houses and the servant had filled two wash-tubs with water and had put them in the shed. After she had filled the tubs she disappeared, got herself out of the way.
"We were running about the house naked as I am doing here now. What happened was that I came naked out of that shed down stairs and climbed the stairs to the upper part of the house, going to my room. The day had grown warm and now it was almost dark."
Again John Webster came to sit with his daughter on the bed and to hold one of her hands.
"I went up the stairs and along a hallway and opening a door went across a room to what I thought was my bed, where I had laid out the clothes I had brought that morning in my bag.
"You see what had happened was that your mother had got out of her bed in her own town at midnight on the night before and when she arrived at my friend's house his mother and sister had insisted she undress and get into bed. She had not unpacked her bag, but had thrown off her clothes and had got in between the sheets as naked as I was when I walked in upon her. As the day had turned warm she had I suppose grown somewhat restless and in stirring about had thrown the bed-clothes to one side.
"She lay, you see, quite nude on the bed, in the uncertain light, and as I had no shoes on my feet I made no sound when I came into her.
"It was an amazing moment for me. I had walked directly to the bed and there she was within a few inches of my hands as they hung by my side. It was your mother's most lovely moment with me. As I have said she was then very slender and her long body was white like the sheets of the bed. At that time I had never before been in the presence of a woman undressed. I had just come from the bath. It was like a kind of wedding, you see.
"How long I stood there looking at her I don't know, but anyway she knew I was there. Her eyes came up to me out of sleep like a swimmer out of the sea. Perhaps, it is just possible, she had been dreaming of me or of some other man.
"At any rate and for just a moment she was not frightened or startled at all. It was really our wedding moment, you see.
