Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1916 edition. Excerpt: ... real estate: an unromantic story Chapter I "then climate" (says Emerson) "is a great impediment to idle persons." Neither Mrs. Smithson nor Caroline Mathers had crossed the doorstep since Friday morning. It was now Monday afternoon, and three days of unceasing rain had made their situation pretty nearly intolerable. If you have a grudge against anyone they can do nothing right--just as, when in sympathy with them, it is difficult to believe they can be in the wrong. Mrs. Smithson sitting cubelike in an easychair beside a small coal fire, looked across at Miss Mathers, her dire companion, indignant because she was silent, although half an hour ago she had been indignant at her for "chattering." Miss Mathers, on the cold side of the room, aware of a draught at the back of her neck, kept looking steadfastly at the bit of work--a piece of Irish crochet--with which her hands were occupied. All the time she was searing her employer with criticism. "She a Christian! A sea-anemone is as much of one! She just sits in that chair all day, and knits, and blinks, and sleeps, and wakens to eat and say something viperish, and then goes to bed. There's nothing wrong with her except overeating and want of exercise!" Mrs. Smithson stirred in her chair and sighed as she lifted the helmet she was knitting "for a deep-sea fisherman." It had indeed a gallant suggestion, and if it ever wrapt the brows of one of the toilers of the sea on a stormy night it justified her feeling of self-complacency. "I wonder," she was thinking, "that a woman calling herself a Christian like Caroline Mathers can put off her time and put out her eyes with that Irish crochet! A collar like that is most unsuitable at her age." Aloud she remarked: "Put a little more coal on the fire, ...
