This copy was half margin, and so provided for additions and
improvements; but for one addition there were ten excisions, great and
small. Lady Bassett had just time to take in the beauty and artistic
character of the place, and to realize the appalling drudgery that
stamped it a workshop, when the author, who had dashed into his garden
for a moment's recreation, came to the window, and furnished contrast
No. 3. For he looked neither like a poet nor a drudge, but a great fat
country farmer. He was rather tall, very portly, smallish head,
commonplace features mild brown eye not very bright, short beard, and
wore a suit of tweed all one color. Such looked the writer of romances
founded on fact. He rolled up to the window--for, if he looked like a
farmer, he walked like a sailor--and stepped into the room.
CHAPTER XXIII.
MR. ROLFE surveyed the two women with a mild, inoffensive, ox-like
gaze, and invited them to be seated with homely civility.
He sat down at his desk, and turning to Lady Bassett, said, rather
dreamily, "One moment, please: let me look at the case and my notes."
First his homely appearance, and now a certain languor about his
manner, discouraged Lady Bassett more than it need; for all artists
must pay for their excitements with occasional languor.
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