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THE WINDOW 95else? oh, yes, it might be cold: a shawl. Choose mea shawl, she said, for that would please Rose, whowas bound to suffer so. ‘There,’ she said, stoppingby the window on the landing, ‘there they are again.'Joseph had settled on another tree-top. 'Don't youthink they mind,’ she said to Jasper, 'having theirwings broken?’ Why did he want to shoot poor oldJoseph and Mary? He shuffled a little on the stairs,and felt rebuked, but not seriously, for she did not un-derstand the fun of shooting birds; that they did notfeel; and being his mother she lived away in anotherdivision of the world, but he rather liked her storiesabout Mary and joseph. She made him laugh. Buthow did she know that those were Mary and Joseph?Did she think the same birds came to the same treesevery night? he asked. But here, suddenly, like allgrown-up people, she ceased to pay him the leastattention. She was listening to a clatter in the hall.

'They ’ve come back!’ she exclaimed, and at onceshe felt much more annoyed with them than relieved.Then she wondered, had it happened? She wouldgo down and they would tell her—but no. Theycould not tell her anything, with all these peopleabout. So she must go down and begin dinner andwait. And, like some queen who, finding her peoplegathered in the hall, looks down upon them, anddescends among them, and acknowledges theirtributes silently, and accepts their devotion and theirprostration before her (Paul did not move a musclebut looked straight before him as she passed), shewent down, and crossed the hall and bowed her headvery slightly, as if she accepted what they could notsay: their tribute to her beauty.