JULIA.  I suppose she thought it was the correct thing.

LAURA.  And I doubt if it cost more than ten shillings.  Now Mrs. Dobson—­you remember her:  she lives in Tudor Street with a daughter one never sees—­something wrong in her head, and has fits—­she sent me a cross of lilies, white lilac, and stephanotis, as handsome as you could wish; and a card—­I forget what was on the card....  Julia, when you died—­

JULIA.  Oh, don’t Laura!

LAURA.  Well, you did die, didn’t you?

JULIA.  Here one doesn’t talk of it.  That’s over.  There are things you will have to learn.

LAURA.  What I was going to say was—­when I died I found my sight was much better.  I could read all the cards without my glasses.  Do you use glasses?

JULIA.  Sometimes, for association.  I have these of our dear Mother’s in her tortoise-shell case.

LAURA.  That reminds me.  Where is our Mother?

JULIA.  She comes—­sometimes.

LAURA.  Why isn’t she here always?

JULIA (with pained sweetness).  I don’t know, Laura.  I never ask questions.

LAURA.  Really, Julia, I shall be afraid to open my mouth presently!

JULIA (long-suffering still).  When you see her you will understand. 
I told her you were coming, so I daresay she will look in.

LAURA.  ‘Look in’!

JULIA.  Perhaps.  That is her chair, you remember.  She always sits there, still.

(ENTER Hannah with the coal.)

Just a little on, please, Hannah—­only a little.

LAURA.  This isn’t China tea:  it’s Indian, three and sixpenny.

JULIA.  Mine is ten shilling China.

LAURA.  Lor’, Julia!  How are you able to afford it?

JULIA.  A little imagination goes a long way here, you’ll find.  Once I tasted it.  So now I can always taste it.

LAURA.  Well!  I wish I’d known.

JULIA.  Now you do.

LAURA.  But I never tasted tea at more than three-and-six.  Had I known, I could have got two ounces of the very best, and had it when——­

JULIA.  A lost opportunity.  Life is full of them.

LAURA.  Then you mean to tell me that if I had indulged more then, I could indulge more now?

JULIA.  Undoubtedly.  As I never knew what it was to wear sables, I have to be content with ermine.

LAURA.  Lor’, Julia, how paltry!

(While this conversation has been going on, a gentle old lady has appeared upon the scene, unnoticed and unannounced.  One perceives, that is to say, that the high-backed arm-chair beside the fire, sheltered by a screen from all possibility of draughts, has an occupant.  Dress and appearance show a doubly septuagenarian character:  at the age of seventy, which in this place she retains as the hall-mark of her earthly pilgrimage, she belongs also to the ‘seventies’ of the last century, wears watered silk, and retains