At half-past one she always prepared to take her nap in the quiet of her
neat flat. She would select a plump, after-lunch chocolate from the box
in her left-hand bureau drawer, take off her shoes, and settle her old
frame in comfort. No noisy grandchildren to disturb her rest. No
fault-finding daughter-in-law to bustle her out of the way. The sounds
that Anna made, moving about in the kitchen at the far end of the long
hall, were the subdued homely swishings and brushings that lulled and
soothed rather than irritated. At half-past two she rose, refreshed,
dressed herself in her dotted swiss with its rows of val, or in black
silk, modish both. She was, in fact, a modish old lady as were her three
friends. They were not the ultra-modern type of old lady who at sixty
apes sixteen. They were neat and rather tart-tongued septuagenarians,
guiltless of artifice. Their soft white hair was dressed neatly and
craftily so as to conceal the thinning spots that revealed the pink
scalp beneath. Their corsets and their stomachs were too high, perhaps,
for fashion, and their heavy brooches and chains and rings appeared
clumsy when compared to the hoar-frost tracery of the platinumsmith's
exquisite art. But their skirts had pleats when pleated skirts were
worn, and their sleeves were snug when snug sleeves were decreed. They
were inclined to cling over-long to a favourite leather reticule,
scuffed and shapeless as an old shoe, but they could hold their own at
bridge on a rainy afternoon. In matters of material and cut Mrs. Mandle
triumphed. Her lace was likely to be real where that of the other three
was imitation.

So there they sat on a park bench in the pleasant afternoon air, filling
their lives with emptiness. They had married, and brought children into
the world; sacrificed for them, managed a household, been widowed. They
represented magnificent achievement, those four old women, though they
themselves did not know it. They had come up the long hill, reached its