io8 THE WORLD'S WORKERS. 



kiss and blessing, I have of course felt more painfully 

 the desolation and irreparable loss." At another 

 time she said, " People don't like me to tire myself, 

 but it is better to come home ready to drop, and to 

 go to bed and to sleep at once, than to have time to 

 feel the dreadful loneliness of this large house, once 

 so peopled, and all the loved ones gone. All my old 

 haunts and places are altered and gone ; I seem 

 plunged alone into a new life." 



Some idea of the extent to which Mary's mother 

 had been accustomed to look after her may be 

 gained from a story which is told of how, one bitterly 

 cold day, Mr. Matthew Davenport Hill met Mrs. 

 Carpenter in the street. He told her that she ought 

 not to be out in such weather, on which she said, 

 "She was obliged to come out to buy clothes for 

 Mary, for she never would buy anything for herself, 

 and had really nothing to put on." Miss Cobbe, too, 

 has told us that Miss Carpenter was simply indifferent 

 to all the minor comforts of life, so much so that she 

 could not comprehend any one caring much for them. 

 Once when she had been staying two or three days at 

 a country house, she gravely remarked, " The ladies 

 and gentlemen all came down dressed for dinner, and 

 evidently thought the meal rather a pleasant part of 

 the day." Unlike these eccentric ladies and gentle- 

 men her own custom was to take whatever could be 

 most easily prepared, and she scarcely gave herself 

 time to eat her food. In the days when she used to 



