Next moment she is captured on her way downstairs to
wind up the clock. So evidently we must be up and doing, and as we
have no servant, my sister disappears into the kitchen, having
first asked me to see that 'that woman' lies still, and 'that
woman' calls out that she always does lie still, so what are we
blethering about?
She is up now, and dressed in her thick maroon wrapper; over her
shoulders (lest she should stray despite our watchfulness) is a
shawl, not placed there by her own hands, and on her head a
delicious mutch. O that I could sing the paean of the white mutch
(and the dirge of the elaborate black cap) from the day when she
called witchcraft to her aid and made it out of snow-flakes, and
the dear worn hands that washed it tenderly in a basin, and the
starching of it, and the finger-iron for its exquisite frills that
looked like curls of sugar, and the sweet bands with which it tied
beneath the chin! The honoured snowy mutch, how I love to see it
smiling to me from the doors and windows of the poor; it is always
smiling - sometimes maybe a wavering wistful smile, as if a tear-
drop lay hidden among, the frills. A hundred times I have taken
the characterless cap from my mother's head and put the mutch in
its place and tied the bands beneath her chin, while she protested
but was well pleased. For in her heart she knew what suited her
best and would admit it, beaming, when I put a mirror into her
hands and told her to look; but nevertheless the cap cost no less
than so-and-so, whereas - Was that a knock at the door? She is
gone, to put on her cap!
She begins the day by the fireside with the New Testament in her
hands, an old volume with its loose pages beautifully refixed, and
its covers sewn and resewn by her, so that you would say it can
never fall to pieces.
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