'On a broken cup,' I reply with surprising readiness, and I get to
work again but am less engrossed, for a conviction grows on me that
I put the carrot-grater in the drawer of the sewing-machine.
I am wondering whether I should confess or brazen it out, when I
hear my sister going hurriedly upstairs. I have a presentiment
that she has gone to talk about me, and I basely open my door and
listen.
'Just look at that, mother!'
'Is it a dish-cloth?'
'That's what it is now.'
'Losh behears! it's one of the new table-napkins.'
'That's what it was. He has been polishing the kitchen grate with
it!'
(I remember!)
'Woe's me! That is what comes of his not letting me budge from
this room. O, it is a watery Sabbath when men take to doing
women's work!'
'It defies the face of clay, mother, to fathom what makes him so
senseless.'
'Oh, it's that weary writing.'
'And the worst of it is he will talk to-morrow as if he had done
wonders.'
'That's the way with the whole clanjam-fray of them.'
'Yes, but as usual you will humour him, mother.'
'Oh, well, it pleases him, you see,' says my mother, 'and we can
have our laugh when his door's shut.'
'He is most terribly handless.'
'He is all that, but, poor soul, he does his best.'
CHAPTER VII - R. L. S.
These familiar initials are, I suppose, the best beloved in recent
literature, certainly they are the sweetest to me, but there was a
time when my mother could not abide them.
Pages:
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87