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 Mrs. Roche looked at her for a moment, then out over her head at the sunset. Mrs. McKenna fidgeted; she disliked this interchange of the personal note. "I don't agree with you," she said, raising her voice to drown the insistence of the bells. "I'm for off with everything—clothes, pose, reserve."

"Oh, now, Fanny, keep a little pose."

"Perhaps," she conceded unblushingly, "a little. Just a flower in the hair. Then to walk about among things like Eve among the trees, and feel them brushing up against me."

"But the world is so crowded, Fanny," said Gilda, who seemed to be enjoying Mrs. McKenna. "Just think, wherever you went it would be like walking in the park."

"I am rather mixed," said Laura; "are we speaking metaphorically, or not?"

"Not," said Mrs. McKenna, poking her. "Oh, decidedly not." She had been longing to poke Laura for some time, every line of the girl's anatomy annoyed her.

The bells came pealing chime after chime, their echoes pervaded the darkening room. Archie stirred on the sofa.