I was the more struck by this as she told me that her aunt
had been less well for a good many days and in a way that was
rather new. She was weaker; at moments it seemed as if she
had no strength at all; yet more than ever before she wished
to be left alone. That was why she had told her to come out--
not even to remain in her own room, which was alongside;
she said her niece irritated her, made her nervous.
She sat still for hours together, as if she were asleep;
she had always done that, musing and dozing; but at such times
formerly she gave at intervals some small sign of life,
of interest, liking her companion to be near her with her work.
Miss Tita confided to me that at present her aunt was so
motionless that she sometimes feared she was dead; moreover she
took hardly any food--one couldn't see what she lived on.
The great thing was that she still on most days got up;
the serious job was to dress her, to wheel her out of her bedroom.
She clung to as many of her old habits as possible and she
had always, little company as they had received for years,
made a point of sitting in the parlor.

I scarcely knew what to think of all this--of Miss Tita's
sudden conversion to sociability and of the strange
circumstance that the more the old lady appeared to decline
toward her end the less she should desire to be looked after.
The story did not hang together, and I even asked myself whether
it were not a trap laid for me, the result of a design to make
me show my hand. I could not have told why my companions
(as they could only by courtesy be called) should have this purpose--
why they should try to trip up so lucrative a lodger.
At any rate I kept on my guard, so that Miss Tita should not