He didn't know how hard it was to "work like blazes." You had to keep
your eyes ready all the time to see what Mamma was doing. You had to take
her up and down stairs, holding her lest she should turn dizzy and fall.
If you left her a minute she would get out of the room, out of the house
and on to the Green by herself and be frightened.
Mamma couldn't remember the garden. She looked at her flowers with
dislike.
You had brought her on a visit to a strange, disagreeable place and left
her there. She was angry with you because she couldn't get away.
Then, suddenly, for whole hours she would be good: a child playing its
delicious game of goodness. When Dr. Charles came in and you took him out
of the room to talk about her you would tell her to sit still until you
came back. And she would smile, the sweet, serious smile of a child that
is being trusted, and sit down on the parrot chair; and when you came
back you would find her sitting there, still smiling to herself because
she was so good.
Why do I love her now, when she is like this--when "_this_" is what I was
afraid of, what I thought I could not bear--why do I love her more, if
anything, now than I've ever done before? Why am I happier now than I've
ever been before, except in the times when I was writing and the times
when I was with Richard?