They both looked at Grandmama, who was playing patience on the sofa and
could not hear their talking for the sound of the sea. Yes, Grandmama was
(apparently) contented now.

"There's work," mused Neville, thinking of the various links with life,
the rafts, rather, which should carry age over the cold seas of tedious
regret. "And there's natural gaiety. And intellectual interests. And
contacts with other people--permanent contacts and temporary ones. And
beauty. All those things. For some people, too, there's religion."

"And for all of us food and drink," said Mrs. Hilary, sharply. "Oh,
I suppose you think I've no right to complain, as I've got all those
things, except work."

But Neville shook her head, knowing that this was a delusion of her
mother's, and that she had, in point of fact, none of them, except the
contacts with people, which mostly either over-strained, irritated or
bored her, and that aspect of religion which made her cry. For she was
a Unitarian, and thought the Gospels infinitely sad and the souls of the
departed most probably so merged in God as to be deprived of all
individuality.

"It's better to be High Church or Roman Catholic and have services, or
an Evangelical and have the Voice of God," Neville decided. And, indeed,
it is probable that Mrs. Hilary would have been one or other of these
things if it had not been for her late husband, who had disapproved of
superstition and had instructed her in the Higher Thought and the Larger
Hope.