Published in Six Common Things (1893)
(First read 13/06/2014)
An old nurse waits for a visit from her favourite charge who's just returned from Australia, where he was sent for health reasons*. Like its two predecessors in the volume, the tale is sad, poignant ~ but this time there are no homilies. The nurse (nicknamed 'Carry') is very obviously based on EFB's own beloved Beth, who stayed with the Sidgwick/Benson families for virtually the whole of her life.
The story can be read online here ...
... I feel I ought to warn sensitive folk that Carrington contains a reference to 'the N-people' which, if EFB wrote it today, would almost certainly get him lynched.
* Yes, I know: why Australia of all places? ~ was Cleethorpes closed or something? had the South of France not been discovered in 1893? ~ baffling.
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