faint, amused smile when he thought of Mr. Hichens.

It was awful to Harriett that her father should be ill, lying there at
their mercy. She couldn't get over her sense of his parenthood, his
authority. When he was obstinate, and insisted on exerting himself, she
gave in. She was a bad nurse, because she couldn't set herself against his
will. And when she had him under her hands to strip and wash him, she felt
that she was doing something outrageous and impious; she set about it with
a flaming face and fumbling hands. "Your mother does it better," he said
gently. But she could not get her mother's feeling of him as a helpless,
dependent thing.

Mr. Hichens called every week to inquire. "Poor man, he wants to know when
he can have his house. Why _will_ he always come on my good days? He
isn't giving himself a chance."

He still had good days, days when he could be helped out of bed to sit in
his chair. "This sort of game may go on for ever," he said. He began to
worry seriously about keeping Mr. Hichens out of his house. "It isn't
decent of me. It isn't decent."

Harriett was ill with the strain of it. She had to go away for a fortnight
with Lizzie Pierce, and Sarah Barmby stayed with her mother. Mrs. Barmby
had died the year before. When Harriett got back her father was making
plans for his removal.

"Why have you all made up your minds that it'll kill me to remove me? It
won't. The men can take everything out but me and my bed and that chair.
And when they've got all the things into the other house they can come
back for the chair and me. And I can sit in the chair while they're