"
When they came indoors, and Mrs. Zachariah heard on the stairs the
tramp of other feet besides those of her husband, she prepared
herself to be put out of temper. Not that she could ever be really
surprised. She was not one of those persons who keep a house orderly
for the sake of appearances. She would have been just the same if
she had been living alone, shipwrecked on a solitary island in the
Pacific. She was the born natural enemy of dirt, dust, untidiness,
and of every kind of irregularity, as the cat is the born natural
enemy of the mouse. The sight of dirt, in fact, gave her a quiet
kind of delight, because she foresaw the pleasure of annihilating it.
Irregularity was just as hateful to her. She could not sit still if
one ornament on the mantelpiece looked one way and the other another
way, and she would have risen from her deathbed, if she could have
done so, to put a chair straight. She was not, therefore, aggrieved
in expectancy because she was not fit to be seen. It was rather
because she resented any interruption of domestic order of which she
had not been previously forewarned. As it happened, however the
Major came first, and striding into the room, he shook her hand with
considerable fervour and kissed it gallantly.
Pages:
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149