1882-1884] Society in Cambridge 269 



cheered up afterwards and had a long talk with M., when 

 he took a lump of sugar and ate it, which she says is a sign he 

 is quite happy. 



My mother's greater freedom from anxiety during these 

 last years made itself felt in her increased power of attach- 

 ing new friends and her ease in conversing with them. The 

 number of books she read and her original way of looking 

 at them, her interest in contemporary politics and her power 

 of entering into other people's lives, made her company 

 refreshing and even exhilarating. Her friends never felt 

 that they were coming to see someone to whom they had 

 to bring mental food. 



Soon after this time, she gave up coming in to dinner 

 when there was anything of a party, partly owing to in- 

 creased deafness but chiefly because she was not so strong. 

 " Bernard and I had our ices in the washus," she wrote a 

 Dickens allusion which need not be explained. 



