Old friends, reflected Mrs. Fisher, who
hoped she was reading, compare one constantly with what one used to be.
They are always doing it if one develops. They are surprised at
development. They hark back; they expect motionlessness after, say,
fifty, to the end of one's days.
That, thought Mrs. Fisher, her eyes going steadily line by line
down the page and not a word of it getting through into her
consciousness, is foolish of friends. It is condemning one to a
premature death. One should continue (of course with dignity) to
develop, however old one may be. She had nothing against developing,
against further ripeness, because as long as one was alive one was not
dead--obviously, decided Mrs. Fisher, and development, change,
ripening, were life. What she would dislike would be unripening, going
back to something green. She would dislike it intensely; and this is
what she felt she was on the brink of doing.
Naturally it made her very uneasy, and only in constant movement
could she find distraction. Increasingly restless and no longer able
to confine herself to her battlements, she wandered more and more
frequently, and also aimlessly, in and out of the top garden, to the
growing surprise of Scrap, especially when she found that all Mrs.
Fisher did was to stare for a few minutes at the view, pick a few dead
leaves off the rose-bushes, and go away again.
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