She closed her eyes, but only for a moment, then started up
anxiously.

"What am I thinking about! Of course you want your tea."

"No, no; indeed I don't, mother."

"Nonsense; of course you do. See, the kettle is on the bob, and I
think it's full. Go away; you make me hotter. Let me see you get
your tea, and then perhaps it'll make me feel I could drink a cup.
There, you've put your hair all out of order; let me smooth it.
Don't trouble to lay the cloth; just use the tray; it's in the
cupboard."

Ida obeyed, and set about the preparations. Compare her face with
that which rested sideways upon the pillows, and the resemblance was
as strong as could exist between two people of such different ages:
the same rich-brown hair, the same strongly-pencilled eye-brows; the
deep-set and very dark eyes, the fine lips, the somewhat prominent
jaw-bones, alike in both. The mother was twenty-eight, the daughter
ten, yet the face on the pillow was the more childish at present. In
the mother's eyes was a helpless look, a gaze of unintelligent
misery, such as one could not conceive on Ida's countenance; her
lips, too, were weakly parted, and seemed trembling to a sob, whilst
sorrow only made the child close hers the firmer. In the one case a
pallor not merely of present illness, but that wasting whiteness
which is only seen on faces accustomed to borrow artificial hues; in
the other, a healthy pearl-tint, the gleamings and gradations of a
perfect complexion. The one a child long lost on weary, woful ways,