(William vanishes.  Mrs. James in a fervour of virtuous indignation hastens to the door, opens it, and calls ‘William!’ but there is no answer!)

(Julia, meanwhile, has rung the bell.  Mrs. James stills stands glowering in the doorway when she hears footsteps, and moves majestically aside for the returned penitent to enter; but alas! it is only Hannah, obedient to the summons of the bell.  Mrs. James faces round and fires a shot at her.)

LAURA.  Hannah, you are an ugly woman.

JULIA (faint with horror).  Laura!

HANNAH (imperturbably). Well, Ma’am, I’m as God made me.

JULIA.  Yes, please, take the tea-things. (Sotto voce, as Hannah approaches.) I’m sorry, Hannah!

HANNAH.  It doesn’t matter, Ma’am. (She picks up the tray expeditiously and carries it off)

(Mrs. James eyes the departing tray, and is again reminded of something)

LAURA.  Julia, where is the silver tea-pot?

JULIA.  Which, Laura?

LAURA.  Why, that beautiful one of our Mother’s.

JULIA.  When we shared our dear Mother’s things between us, didn’t Martha have it?

LAURA.  Yes, she did.  But she tells me she doesn’t know what’s become of it.  When I ask, what did she do with it in the first place? she loses her temper.  But once she told me she left it here with you.

(The fierce eye and the accusing tone make no impression on that cushioned fortress of gentility.  With suave dignity Miss Robinson makes chaste denial.)

JULIA.  No.

LAURA (insistent). Yes; in a box.

JULIA.  In a box?  Oh, she may have left anything in a box.

LAURA.  It was that box she always travelled about with and never opened. 
Well, I looked in it once (never mind how), and the tea-pot wasn’t there.

JULIA (gently, making allowance).  Well, I didn’t look in it,
Laura.

(Like a water-lily folding its petals she adjusts a small shawl about her shoulders, and sinks composedly into her chair.)

LAURA.  The more fool you!...  But all the other things she had of our Mother’s were there:  a perfect magpie’s nest!  And she, living in her boxes, and never settling anywhere.  What did she want with them?

JULIA.  I can’t say, Laura.

LAURA.  No—­no more can I; no more can anyone!  Martha has got the miser spirit.  She’s as grasping as a caterpillar. I ought to have had that tea-pot.

JULIA.  Why?

LAURA.  Because I had a house of my own, and people coming to tea.  Martha never had anyone to tea with her in her life—­except in lodgings.

JULIA.  We all like to live in our own way.  Martha liked going about.

LAURA.  Yes.  She promised me, after William—­I suppose I had better say ‘evaporated’ as you won’t let me say ’died’—­she promised always to stay with me for three months in the year.  She never did.  Two, and some little bits, were the most.  And I want to know where was that tea-pot all the time?