She could not
remember how time went, or that there was any difference between one day
and another. There were Sundays, it was true, which made a kind of gentle
measure of the progress of time; but she said, with a smile, that she
thought it was always Sunday--they came so close upon each other. And
time flew on gentle wings, that made no sound and left no reminders. She
had her little ailments like anybody, but in reality less than anybody,
seeing there was nothing to fret her, nothing to disturb the even tenor
of her days. Still there were times when she took a little cold, or got a
chill, in spite of all precautions, as she went from one room to another.
She came to be one of the marvels of the time,--an old lady who had seen
everybody worth seeing for generations back; who remembered as distinctly
as if they had happened yesterday, great events that had taken place
before the present age began at all, before the great statesmen of our
time were born; and in full possession of all her faculties, as everybody
said, her mind as clear as ever, her intelligence as active, reading
everything, interested in everything, and still beautiful, in extreme old
age. Everybody about her, and in particular all the people who helped to
keep the thorns from her path, and felt themselves to have a hand in her
preservation, were proud of Lady Mary and she was perhaps a little, a
very little, delightfully, charmingly, proud of herself.
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