"Louise stayed in her room, making her bed and tidying up, and going to the door from time to time to see if she could hear sounds of life, or smell bacon frying. She thought about the years when Miriam was a child, and it was Louise who prepared breakfast, and served it out, and gently criticised table manners. How odd it was, the way their roles in life had become reversed, the mother's and the daughter's. For what a short time, it seemed, had Louise been able to look after Miriam. Now it was the other way round. Miriam was responsible for her mother. Louise was the child, and, absurd though she knew it to be, as anxious to be in Miriam's good graces as if her daughter had been an exacting parent."--description on inside of jacket.