Last time we were there she said she hoped she should not die yet.
"You see," she said, "I am beginning now to know how to live."
These were her own words and, considering the circumstances under
which they were spoken, they are enough to stamp the speaker as a
remarkable woman. She has got as much from age and lost as little
from youth as woman can well do. Nevertheless, to look at, she is
like one of the witches in Macbeth.
New-Laid Eggs
When I take my Sunday walks in the country, I try to buy a few really
new-laid eggs warm from the nest. At this time of the year (January)
they are very hard to come by, and I have long since invented a sick
wife who has implored me to get her a few eggs laid not earlier than
the self-same morning. Of late, as I am getting older, it has become
my daughter who has just had a little baby. This will generally draw
a new-laid egg, if there is one about the place at all.
At Harrow Weald it has always been my wife who for years has been a
great sufferer and finds a really new-laid egg the one thing she can
digest in the way of solid food. So I turned her on as movingly as I
could not long since, and was at last sold some eggs that were no
better than common shop eggs, if so good. Next time I went I said my
poor wife had been made seriously ill by them; it was no good trying
to deceive her; she could tell a new-laid egg from a bad one as well
as any woman in London, and she had such a high temper that it was
very unpleasant for me when she found herself disappointed.
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