The Solitary Summer

In the next room I went into an old woman lay in bed with her head tied up in bandages. The room had not much in it, or it would have been untidier; it looked neglected and gloomy, and some dirty plates, suggestive of long-past dinners, were piled on the table. "Oh, such headaches!" groaned the old woman when she saw me, and moved her head from side to side on the pillow. I could see she was not undressed, and had crept under her feather bag as she was. I went to the bedside and felt her pulse--a steady pulse, with nothing of feverishness in it. "Oh, such draughts!" moaned the old woman, when she saw I had left the door open. "A little air will make you feel better," I said; the atmosphere in the shut-up room was so indescribable that my own head had begun to throb. "Oh, oh!" she moaned, in visible indignation at being forced for a moment to breathe the pure summer air. "I have something at home that will cure your headache," I said, "but there is nobody I can send with it to-day. If you feel better later on, come round and fetch it. I always take it when I have a headache"-- ("Why, Elizabeth, you know you never have such things!" whispered my conscience, appalled. "You just keep quiet," I whispered back, "I have had enough of you for one day.")--"and I have some grapes I will give you when you come, so that if you possibly can, do."