(Martha is quite as much surprised as Mrs. James, but less indignant.)

MARTHA.  Well!  Did you ever?

LAURA (facing about after vain search).  Does she think that is the proper way to behave to me? Julia!

MARTHA.  It’s no good, Laura.  You know Julia, as well as I do.  If she makes up her mind to a thing—­

LAURA.  Yes.  She’s been waiting here to exercise her patience on me, and now she’s happy!  Well, she’ll have to learn that this house doesn’t belong to her any longer.  She has got to accommodate herself to living with others....  I wonder how she’d like me to go and sit in that pet chair of hers?

JULIA (softly reappearing in the chair which the ‘dear Mother’ usually occupies).  You can go and sit in it if you wish, Laura.

LAURA (ignoring her return).  Martha, do you remember that odious man who used to live next door, who played the ’cello on Sundays?

MARTHA.  Oh yes, I remember.  They used to hang out washing in the garden, didn’t they?

LAURA (very scandalously).  Julia is friends with him!  They call on each other.  His wife doesn’t live with him any longer.

(Julia rises and goes slowly and majestically out of the room.)

LAURA (after relishing what she conceives to be her rout of the enemy).  Martha, what do you think of Julia?

MARTHA.  Oh, she’s—­What do you want me to think?

LAURA.  High and mighty as ever, isn’t she?  She’s been here by herself so long she thinks the whole place is hers.

MARTHA.  I daresay we shall settle down well enough presently.  Which room are you sleeping in?

LAURA.  Of course, I have my old one.  Where do you want to go?

MARTHA.  The green room will suit me.

LAURA.  And Julia means to keep our Mother’s room:  I can see that.  No wonder she won’t come and stay,

MARTHA.  Have you seen her?

LAURA.  She just ‘looked in,’ as Julia calls it.  I could see she’d hoped to find me alone.  Julia always thought she was the favourite.  I knew better.

MARTHA.  How was she?

LAURA.  Just her old self; but as if she missed something.  It wasn’t a happy face, until I spoke to her:  then it all brightened up....  Oh, thank you for the wreath, Martha.  Where did you get it?

MARTHA.  Emily made it.

LAURA.  That fool!  Then she made her own too, I suppose?

MARTHA.  Yes.  That went the day before, so you got it in time.

LAURA.  I thought it didn’t look up to much. (She is now contemplating Emily’s second effort with a critical eye.) Now a little maiden-hair fern would have made a world of difference.

MARTHA.  I don’t hold with flowers myself.  I think it’s wasteful.  But, of course, one has to do it.

LAURA (with pained regret).  I’m sorry, Martha; I return it—­with many thanks.