She
unconsciously mocked the few well-chosen, well-placed pictures on
the walls (which she itched to cover with a "flock" paper) by
placing in the same room on bamboo easels that matched the
be-ribboned flower-stands pastel, crayon, or _gouache_ studies of
the worst possible taste.
Michael's library alone was free from her improvements, though it
was sometimes littered with her work-bags or her work. She had long
ago developed the dreadful mistake that it "helped" Michael at his
work if she brought hers (perfectly futile as a rule) there too. "I
just sit silently in his room, my dear, and stitch or knit something
for poor people in Marrybone--I'm told you mayn't say Mary-le-bone.
I feel it _helps_ Michael to know I'm there, but of course I don't
interrupt him at his _work_."
As a matter of fact she did, confoundedly. But fortunately she soon
grew sleepy or restless. She would yawn, as she believed "prettily,"
but certainly noisily; or she would wonder "how time was going," and
of course her twenty-guinea watch never went, or if it was going was
seldom within one hour of the actual time. Or she would sneeze six
times in succession--little cat-like sneezes that were infinitely
disturbing to a brain on the point of grasping the solution of a
problem. Throughout the winter months she had a little cough. Oh no,
you needn't think I'm preparing the way for decease through
phthisis--it was one of those "kiffy" coughs due in the main to
acidity--too many sweet things in her diet, too little exercise.
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