She made a rapid calculation in her brain of her little capital in the savings-bank, which yielded her (after the income-tax had been recovered) an annual sum of £10 13s. 9d. Though too old to teach, she was too young to buy much of an annuity with the capital, and she knew the state of the labour market too well to cherish any illusions as to the possibility of obtaining work. Perhaps she ought to have saved more, but for some years she had her invalid mother mainly dependent upon her, and illness runs away with money; she grudged nothing to the dead, but she remembered almost with shame the amount she had spent in holiday tours.
Her eyes rested with a sense of coming loss on the crowd in the playground, a kaleidoscopic scene of flying legs and whirling draperies, the sun shining on bright frocks and on the loose locks of gold and auburn till the dreary courtyard seemed to blossom like a flower-garden. How she had loved all these girls, toiled and slaved for them, rejoiced in their success and mourned for their disappointments; but the children of the Higher Education, unlike Saturn, devour the mothers of the movement, and suddenly these fair young girls had turned into rivals and enemies, beating her down in the dust with cricket bats and hockey sticks. An hour of bitter atheism fell upon Miss Allison; all her life had been spent in serving "the cause," the Higher Education of Women had been her creed, but now in middle life it had failed and she was left helpless and superfluous as the poor women of an earlier generation, who hung so forlornly round the neck of their nearest male relation.
A dry sob half choked her, as she rose mechanically in obedience to the bell to take her class in geometry.
O Father, we beseech Thee, sustain and comfort Thy servants who have lost the powers of reason and self-control, suffer not the Evil One to vex them, and in Thy mercy deliver them from the darkness of this world....--_Prayer for Lunatics._
I passed through the spacious grounds of A---- Asylum on my way to visit the patients chargeable to our parish. A group of men were playing Rugby football, but even to the eye of the tyro there was something wrong with the game--there was no unity, no enthusiasm; some lurking sinister presence--grotesque, hideous, that made one shudder--worse than strait-waistcoat and padded-room. In conversation the lunatics struck me as no worse mentally than the rest of us outside. Most of them complained of unlawful detention, and begged pathetically for freedom. "It is a dreadful place; why should I be kept here? We have just had a harvest festival, but I'm not thankful. What have we to do with harvest festivals?"