she would have been a good deal less placid.

It was restful to sit and look at her kind old face, soft and round
beneath her lace cap, steeped in a peace deeper than lethargy. She was
one of nature's opiates, and she administered herself unconsciously to
everyone who saw much of her. Edward's father, having had an overdose,
had not survived. Mrs. Marston always spoke of him as 'my poor husband
who fell asleep,' as if he had dozed in a sermon. Sleep was her fetish,
panacea and art. Her strongest condemnation was to call a person 'a
stirring body.' She sat to-day, while preparations raged in the
kitchen, placidly knitting. She always knitted--socks for Edward and
shawls for herself. She had made so many shawls, and she so felt the
cold, that she wore them in layers--pink, grey, white, heather mixture,
and a purple cross-over.

When Martha and the friend who had come to help quarrelled shrilly, she
murmured, 'Poor things! putting themselves in such a pother!' When,
after a crash, Martha was heard to say, 'There's the cream-jug now!
Well, break one, break three!' she only shook her head, and murmured
that servants were not what they used to be. When Martha's friend's
little boy dropped the urn--presented to the late Mr. Marston by a
grateful congregation, and as large as a watering-can--and Martha's
friend shouted, 'I'll warm your buttons!' and proceeded to do so, Mrs.
Marston remained self-poised as a sun.

At last supper was set out, the cloths going in terraces according to
the various heights of the tables; the tea-sets--willow and Coalport,
the feather pattern, and the seaweed--looking like a china-shop; the
urn, now rakishly dinted, presiding. People paid for their supper on
these occasions, and expected to have as much as they could eat. Mrs.