My aunt had by degrees erased every
other visitor's name from her list, because they all committed the fatal
error, in her eyes, of falling into one or other of the two categories of
people she most detested. One group, the worse of the two, and the one of
which she rid herself first, consisted of those who advised her not to
take so much care of herself, and preached (even if only negatively and
with no outward signs beyond an occasional disapproving silence or
doubting smile) the subversive doctrine that a sharp walk in the sun and a
good red beefsteak would do her more good (her, who had had two dreadful
sips of Vichy water on her stomach for fourteen hours!) than all her
medicine bottles and her bed. The other category was composed of people
who appeared to believe that she was more seriously ill than she thought,
in fact that she was as seriously ill as she said. And so none of those
whom she had allowed upstairs to her room, after considerable
hesitation and at Franchise's urgent request, and who in the course of
their visit had shewn how unworthy they were of the honour which had been
done them by venturing a timid: "Don't you think that if you were just to
stir out a little on really fine days.
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