MARTHA.  What’s the good of that?  I can’t give it back to Emily, now!

LAURA (with quiet grief).  I don’t wish to be a cause of waste.

MARTHA.  Well, take it to pieces, then; and put them in water—­or wear it round your head!

LAURA.  Ten beautiful wreaths my friends sent me.  They are all lying on my grave now!  A pity that love is so wasteful!  Well, I suppose I must go now and change into my cap. (Goes to the door, where she encounters Julia.) Why, Julia, you nearly knocked me down!

JULIA (ironically). I beg your pardon, Laura; it comes of using the same door.  Hannah has lighted a fire in your room.

LAURA.  That’s sensible at any rate.

(EXIT Mrs. James)

JULIA.  Well?  And how do you find Laura?

MARTHA.  Julia, I don’t know whether I can stand her.

JULIA.  She hasn’t got quite—­used to herself yet.

MARTHA (explosively). Put that away somewhere! (She gives an angry shove to the wreath)

JULIA.  Put it away!  Why?

MARTHA (furiously). Emily made it:  and it didn’t cost anything; and it hasn’t got any maiden-hair fern in it; and it’s too big to wear with her cap.  So it’s good for nothing!  Put it on the fire!  She doesn’t want to see it again.

JULIA (comprehending the situation, restores the wreath to its box).  Why did you bring it here, Martha?

MARTHA (miserably). I don’t know.  I just clung on to it.  I suppose it was on my mind to look after it, and see it wasn’t damaged.  So I found I’d brought it with me....  I believe, now I think of it, I’ve brought some sandwiches, too. (She routs in a small hand-bag.) Yes, I have.  Well, I can have them for supper....  Emily made those too.

JULIA.  Then I think you’d better let Hannah have them—­for the sake of peace.

MARTHA (woefully). I thought I was going to have peace here.

JULIA.  It will be all right, Martha—­presently.

MARTHA.  Well, I don’t want to be uncharitable; but I do wish—­I must say it—­I do wish Laura had been cremated.

(This is the nearest she can do for wishing her sister in the place to which she thinks she belongs.  But the uncremated Mrs. James now re-enters in widow’s cap.)

LAURA.  Julia, have you ever seen Papa, since you came here?

JULIA (frigidly). No, I have not.

LAURA.  Has our Mother seen him?

JULIA.  I haven’t—­(About to say the forbidden thing, she checks herself.) Mamma has not seen him:  nor does she know his whereabouts.

LAURA.  Does nobody know?

JULIA.  Nobody that I know of.

LAURA.  Well, but he must be somewhere.  Is there no way of finding him?

JULIA.  Perhaps you can devise one.  I suppose, if we chose, we could go to him; but I’m not sure—­as he doesn’t come to us.