Since the previous summer Marion had watched her daughter with some anxiety. She had been quiet and still, she had not perceptibly grown, though she had accepted all the duties that Marion had given her. She had weeded for long hours in the garden, carried and fetched corn and flour, minded Alice, ground beans in the quern, and sorted and spun wool. But Marion had observed the increasing slowness in her movements, longer and longer moments of idleness and, as autumn came on, a more frequent cough, plaintive and purposeless. In spite of her lackadaisical idleness, her complexion seemed improved and a pretty pinkness showed through the dirt on her thin cheeks, but as autumn turned to winter her eyes became duller, the cough more persistent and no exhortation from her mother could rouse her. By Christmas she could do nothing but crouch on the log by the fire, minding Alice and now and then spinning a few yards of wool, but winding what she had spun on to the spool seemed to use all her reserves of energy. She had begged Marion to let her stay in the cottage with Alice and not go to the Christmas feast in the Hall, and Marion had agreed. It had been snowing and a raw wet wind, smelling of melting snow, was rattling the ivy on the ash tree above the cottage. It was better to stay at home. Between Christmas and the new month, Margery became indifferent to food. She soon became incapable of rising and lay curled in her blanket at the foot of the bed. The weather turned very cold. A hard frost crisped the remains of the snow. The bushes on the Common were a mass of twigs in a network of ice.

On the morning of the second such day, Marion pushed open the top half of the door and let into the cottage the pink light of a frosty sunrise. Margery did not move. From her pinched nose and colourless face Marion knew she had died.

It half horrified Marion to realize now how little she missed Margery, how little she grieved for this child who had been with her for twelve years. It was almost as though she had always expected her to die. What a wasted little life, she thought, and suddenly realized that Margery had probably never had a moment’s happiness, not one day, not one easy summer afternoon. It had all seemed like suffering. Marion recalled so sharply the red-rimmed anxious eyes, fearful, uncomplaining, unquestioning, and now closed for ever.