* * * * *

The dismissal of the last of the Carrol clan from any participation in the Robson destinies gave Claire a feeling at once independent and solitary.  There had been a vague hope that this crisis might germinate some stray seeds of kinship, shriveled by the drought of uneventful years.  But the poisonous nettles of memory were the only harvest that had sprung from the presence of Mrs. Robson’s sisters, and Claire was glad to uproot the arid product of their shallowness.

The week came to a close with a rush of visitors.  Suddenly it seemed as if everybody knew of Mrs. Robson’s illness.  Fellow church members, old school friends, casual acquaintances began to ring the front-door bell insistently.  Knowing her mother’s instinctive craving for recognition, it struck Claire that it was the height of irony to see this belated crowd come swarming in on the heels of calamity at the moment when Mrs. Robson was unable to so much as see them.  Mrs. Robson would have so liked to sit in even a threadbare pomp and receive the homage of her visitors, but fate had been scurvy enough to withhold this scant triumph.

Nellie Whitehead breezed in on Saturday afternoon just as Mrs. Finnegan’s cuckoo clock cooed the stroke of three; immediately the air began to move out of adversity’s tragic current.  It was impossible to be wholly without hope under the impetus of Nellie Whitehead’s flaming good humor.

“I’m all out of breath,” she began, as she flopped into the first chair that came handy.  “I keep forgetting I ain’t sweet sixteen any more and never been kissed.  I hate to walk slow, though.  Don’t you?  Say, but you are up against it, ain’t you!  I saw that Munch dame on the street and she nearly broke her old neck trying to catch up with me.  I wondered what was the matter, because she ain’t usually so keen about flagging me.  But, you know, she never misses a trick at spilling out the calamity stuff, especially if it isn’t on her....  ‘Oh, Miss Whitehead,’ she called out before I had a chance to beat it, ’have you heard about Miss Robson’s mother?’ ...When she got through I fixed her with that trusty old eye of mine and I said, ‘I suppose you see her quite often.’  And what do you think the old stiff said?  ’Oh, I’d like to, Miss Whitehead, but I really haven’t had time.  You know I’m doing all Mr. Flint’s dictation now.’  And she had the nerve to try and slip me a hint that she was going to keep on doing it.  But I just said to myself:  ’You should kid yourself that way, old girl!  When Flint picks a bloomer like you to ornament the back office it will be because his eyesight’s failed him.’ ...By the way, how do you manage to stand him off—­with religious tracts or a hat-pin?”

She hardly waited for Claire’s reply, but plunged at once into another monologue.