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 the squat brown tea-pot, one hand splayed against her heart.

"Such a house!" she gasped. "It's that unexpected, really it is!"

They ate in silence. All Herbert's old irritation with his sister surged up within him. She was such a vague, uncertain, feckless creature; the air of startled spirituality that had become her as a girl now sat grotesquely on her middle-aged uncomeliness. He contrasted her with the buxom Emily. Emily would have known how to make her brother comfortable. But, of course, Emily had married.

She spoke.

"I suppose I might take mother's furniture. It really is mine, isn't it? Just that little work-table, and the book-shelf, and the escritoire."

"I don't see what you mean by 'take it.' It'll all be in the same rooms, in the same house as the rest. Of course, poor mother gave them to you. But I don't see how that makes any difference. I was thinking we might put that little escritoire in the drawing-room. It will look very well there."