gets out of gear."

"I have always imagined needlework to be a woman's proper refuge," Hamilton remarked, and she flashed round upon him.

"You haven't! Needlework! It's my purgatory. It's the bane of my existence. If ever I have a home of my own—" the words slipped recklessly out, and though with instant realisation her colour deepened, she went on—"I'll never darn another stocking in my life. Don't I wish I could set a dozen men for a whole day to patch and mend? They wouldn't prescribe needlework again, I can tell them, as a sedative! Besides, I don't want sedatives. I want champagne. The only sort of needlework I ever found endurable is trimming hats. I should like to trim a new one for myself every week, and to give the old ones away. That would be jolly."

Hamilton disapproved alike of extravagance and of feminine slang, which she knew.

"A hat doesn't take long, when one is in the mood. Don't you love doing things when you're in the mood, and don't you hate doing them when you're out of the mood?" She glanced at Hamilton, and he tried to insert a remark about not being the victim of impulse, but she gave him no loophole, and rattled on.

"I wonder whether, if I waited long enough, I should ever be in the mood for handling dirty library books. But, of course, I shouldn't. It's too hopelessly against the grain. Oh, yes, I had your letter— thanks awfully." She suppressed a glimmering smile. "And I'll keep the list of books that you want me to read; though I don't believe I shall ever manage to wade through them. Geology is so fearfully dry. It's history that I love; and poetry; and languages; and really good novels. Not science. You don't care for novels, I know. You only care for chemical combinations and explosive substances, and old bones and stones, and labelled specimens, and flints and arrowheads."

Katherine was silently indignant that the girl could laugh at Hamilton. He tried to defend himself; but for once the inveterate talker was over-matched. Doris did not raise her voice, but she poured steadily on like a babbling stream.

"Oh, I know!—I know! Old bones mean a lot; and everybody ought to be scientific. But everybody isn't; and I don't care a hang for rows of specimens. One wants something lively in a place like Lynnbrooke. It's always the same thing over and over again here. A weird old body marches up, born in the year one, and says: 'How do you do?—and is Mrs. Winton quite well?—and how busy the dear Rector must be!' Or perhaps 

 Prev. P 26/205 next