Beale was delicate at that time, and obliged to forego the early
breakfast with her husband which had hitherto been the habit and pleasure
of her whole married life.
The bishop did not come up to the sitting room that morning, however, and
when Edith and her mother had breakfasted they read the Psalms for the day
together, and a chapter of the Bible, verse by verse. Then Edith wrote
some notes for her mother, who was busy making a cushion for a bazaar;
after which she went into the garden and gathered flowers in one of the
conservatories, which she brought in to paint on a screen she was making,
also for the bazaar.
Mother and daughter worked together without any conversation to speak of
until lunch: they were too busy to talk. After lunch they drove out into
the country and paid a call. On the way back Edith noticed a beggar, a
young, slender, very delicate-looking girl, lying across the footpath with
her feet toward the road. A tiny baby lay on her lap. Her head and
shoulders were pillowed upon the high bank which flanked the path, her
face was raised as if her last look had been up at the sky above her, her
hands had slipped helplessly on to the ground on either side of her,
releasing the child, which had rolled over on to its face and so continued
inertly.
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