“Sometimes she does. Sometimes I can’t bear to get her to make the effort. She’s up today though—all tuckered out, sitting in the rocker by the window. I’ll just go and tell her you’re here.”

“Good strong coffee, Hannah dear,” Christina heard a faint voice asking. “I do want to be myself.”

But when she was allowed to go in, Jane Tuttle held out a thin but surprisingly warm hand, and at once asked Christina about Cornelius. Her face looked hollowed out, the bones of the forehead as thin as those of a bird. But her eyes were as clear and attentive as ever. While Christina told about life at the Ark, Jane pulled threads in her skirt straight, just as she always used to do. Christina felt that any real talk they might have would come after the strong coffee Hannah was preparing, for until then Jane was obviously listening for her approach, a little anxiously.

“Has not life been good to send me Hannah when I needed her most?” she asked when at last Hannah and the tray appeared.

“I notice that Willard has a way of providing,” Christina answered.

“All the old babies get proper attention?” Jane asked with her old twinkle. But when Hannah had left, she sighed.

“That is what I have become, Christina—a little weak baby.” Then she looked quite mischievous for a moment and whispered, “At last Hannah has me where she wants me, completely under control.”

“It can’t be easy,” Christina murmured. For this was, without doubt, the real ordeal of very old age—consciousness without power, the cruel truth about life, that we suffer most from seeing without being able to do, carried to the highest magnitude.

“It was hard when I struggled against such dependence, and against being babied. Then one day I just gave up—gave up the ghost, you might say—just decided to rest on the strong arms God has provided.” She gave Christina a tender look. “It’s good to have a little talk. Sometimes, deep down inside, it has been lonely, except for dreaming. I think I am most awake these days in my dreams—wonderful dreams, Christina. I have seen my mother as clearly before me as if she were sitting in that chair.”

“That is what Cornelius says. He says he is wide awake when he is dozing—he just seems not to be there. But he is very much somewhere else.”

“Dear man, it must be awful for him not to be able to move about freely. He was such an outdoorsy person.”

“The odd thing is that he doesn’t mind. He lives within the limits—what he can do he enjoys.”