It wanted a few minutes to eight when Miss Nippett fell into a peaceful doze.  Mavis took this opportunity of making herself a much-needed cup of tea.  Whilst she was gratefully sipping it, Miss Nippett suddenly awoke to say: 

“There!  There’s something I always meant to do.”

“Never mind now,” said Mavis soothingly.

“But I do.  It is something to mind about—­I never stood ‘Turpsichor’ a noo coat of paint.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“I always promised I would, but kep’ putting it off an’ off, an’ now she’ll never get it from me.  Poor old ’Turpsichor’!”

Miss Nippett soon forgot her neglect of “Turpsichor” and fell into a further doze.

When she next awoke, she asked: 

“Would you mind drawing them curtains?”

“Like that?”

“You are good to me:  reely you are.”

“Nonsense!”

“But then you ought to be:  you’ve got a good man to love you an’ give you babies.”

“What is it you want?” asked Mavis sadly.

“Can you see the ’Scrubbs’?”

“The prison?”

“Yes, the ‘Scrubbs.’  Can you see ’em?”

“Yes.”

“Quite distinct?”

“Quite.”

“That’s awright.”

Miss Nippett sighed with some content.

“If ’e don’t come soon, ’e’ll be too late,” murmured Miss Nippett after an interval of seeming exhaustion.

Mavis waited with ears straining for the sound of the knocker on the front door.  Miss Nippett lay so that her weakening eyes could watch the door of the bedroom.  Now and again, Mavis addressed one or two remarks to her, but the old woman merely shook her head, as if to convey that she had neither the wish nor the strength for further speech.  Mavis, with a great fear, noted the failing light in her friend’s eyes, but was convinced that, for all the weakening of the woman’s physical processes, she desired as ardently as ever a sight of Mr Poulter before she died.  A few minutes later, a greyness crept into Miss Nippett’s face.  Mavis repressed an inclination to fly from the room.  Then, although she feared to believe the evidence of her ears, a knock was heard at the door.  After what seemed an interval of centuries, she heard footsteps ascending the stairs.  Mavis glanced at Miss Nippett.  She was horrified to see that her friend was heedless of Mr Poulter’s possible approach.  She moved quickly to the door.  To her unspeakable relief, Mr Poulter stood outside.  She beckoned him quickly into the room.  He hastened to the bedside, where, after gazing sadly at the all but unconscious Miss Nippett, he knelt to take the woman’s wan, worn hand in his.  To Mavis’s surprise, Miss Nippett’s fingers at once closed on those of Mr Poulter.  As the realisation of his presence reached the dying woman’s understanding, a smile of infinite gladness spread over her face:  a rare, happy smile, which, as if by magic, effaced the puckered forehead, the wasted cheeks, the long upper lip, to substitute in their stead a great contentment, such as might be possessed by one who has found a deep joy, not only after much travail, but as if, till the last moment, the longed-for bliss had all but been denied.  The wan fingers grasped tighter and tighter; the smile faded a little before becoming fixed.