task was too hard for me; that I loathed my life; that it was impossible
to live any longer without love and appreciation and sympathy; that so
uncongenial an atmosphere could be no home to me; that the world was an
utter negation and a mockery.

That was before I went to the hospital, at the time when my trouble was
fresh and I was breaking my heart with the longing to see Charlie's face
again. Most people who have lived long in the world, and have parted with
their beloved, know what that sort of hopeless ache means.

My work was over at the hospital, and I had come home again,--to rest, so
they said, but in reality to work out plans for my future life, in a sort
of sullen silence, that seemed to shut me out from all sympathy.

It had wrapped me in a sort of mantle of reserve all the afternoon,
during which I had been driving with Aunt Philippa and Sara. The air
would do me good. I was moped, hipped, with all that dreary hospital
work, so they said. It would distract and amuse me to watch Sara making
her purchases. Reluctance, silent opposition, only whetted their
charitable mood.

'Don't be disagreeable, Ursula. You might as well help me choose my new
mantle,' Sara had said, quite pleasantly, and I had given in with a bad
grace.

Another time I might have been amused by Aunt Philippa's majestic
deportment and Sara's brisk importance, her girlish airs and graces; but
I was too sad at heart to indulge in my usual satire. Everything seemed
stupid and tiresome; the hum of voices wearied me; the showroom at
Marshall and Snelgrove's seemed a confused Babel,--everywhere strange