"Nothing's changed, except that I'm more serious than ever.... Do you
still do the same things? Do you still sit in the curly chair, holding
your work up to your chin with your little pointed hands like a squirrel?
Do you still see the same people?"

"I don't make new friends, Robin."

He seemed to settle down after that, smiling at his own thoughts,
appeased....

Lying in her bed in the spare room, Harriett heard the opening and
shutting of Robin's door. She still thought of Prissie's paralysis as
separating them, still felt inside her a secret, unacknowledged
satisfaction. Poor little Prissie. How terrible. Her pity for Priscilla
went through and through her in wave after wave. Her pity was sad and
beautiful and at the same time it appeased her pain.


In the morning Priscilla told her about her illness. The doctors didn't
understand it. She ought to have had a stroke and she hadn't had one.
There was no reason why she shouldn't walk except that she couldn't. It
seemed to give her pleasure to go over it, from her first turning round
and round in the street (with helpless, shaking laughter at the queerness
of it), to the moment when Robin bought her the wheel chair.... Robin ...
Robin ...

"I minded most because of Robin. It's such an _awful_ illness, Hatty.
I can't move when I'm in bed. Robin has to get up and turn me a dozen
times in one night.... Robin's a perfect saint. He does everything for
me." Prissie's voice and her face softened and thickened with voluptuous