One of these, heard not infrequently, was to the effect that--in
London--one might live under an umbrella if one lived under it in
the right neighbourhood and on the right side of the street, which
axiom is the reason that a certain child through the first six
years of her life sat on certain days staring out of a window
in a small, dingy room on the top floor of a slice of a house on
a narrow but highly fashionable London street and looked on at
the passing of motors, carriages and people in the dull afternoon
grayness.
The room was exalted above its station by being called The Day
Nursery and another room equally dingy and uninviting was known as
The Night Nursery. The slice of a house was inhabited by the very
pretty Mrs. Gareth-Lawless, its inordinate rent being reluctantly
paid by her--apparently with the assistance of those "ravens" who
are expected to supply the truly deserving. The rent was inordinate
only from the standpoint of one regarding it soberly in connection
with the character of the house itself which was a gaudy little
kennel crowded between two comparatively stately mansions. On one
side lived an inordinately rich South African millionaire, and
on the other an inordinately exalted person of title, which facts
combined to form sufficient grounds for a certain inordinateness
of rent.
Mrs. Gareth-Lawless was also, it may be stated, of the fibre
which must live on the right side of the street or dissolve into
nothingness--since as nearly nothingness as an embodied entity can
achieve had Nature seemingly created her at the outset.
Pages:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25