In winter Maureen's room is the warmest spot of the house, which is old
and draughty, and I have always gone there when I have wanted to get the
chill out of my bones. Maureen will sit by the window sewing, while I
get down on to the little stool which used to be mine in my childhood
and look into the heart of the flame and imagine things there.

There is a photograph of my Uncle Luke on the chimney-piece, an artless
thing of a country photographer. He is wearing his militia uniform, and
even the country photographer had no power to destroy the bonny charm
which sat on his eyes and his lips.

Now Maureen had, whether from increasing years or from the lonely life
she led, come to have delusions at times, to mix up me with my mother or
my Aunt Eleanor, to talk of Uncle Luke as though he were yet with us or
might be expected at any moment home from college, or from a hunting
day or a fair or market, or his training with his regiment on the
Curragh of Kildare.

But on this day she was clear enough in her mind.

Uncle Luke's old setter, Dido, that was a young thing when he went away,
had followed me upstairs and lay along the rug with her head on my lap.
Now and again she pricked her ears as though she heard something or
thought she did. It was Dido who led us on to talk of Uncle Luke.
Maureen is no more tolerant of dogs about her than others of her class,
but she tolerates Dido because she belonged to Uncle Luke.

"If his Lordship had a real kindness for that old dog," she began, "he'd
poison her and put her out of her trouble."