Page:Magdalen by J S Machar.pdf/141



T the corner of the common, there stood a low, clean, little brown house with latticed windows. The passers-by (provided they rallied about the banner of the ruling party) politely and, apparently without seeing anybody, bowed towards the corner window. The Free Citizen aimed its wit at it every two weeks, and its partisans grinned maliciously and provokingly at it, though it was quiet within and not a human face appeared there the whole day long, and two curved wings of lace curtains hung undisturbed to the very floor.

Hidden behind them, however, the lady of the house sat all day over a stocking. She seemed to have grown into her armchair, like a malicious old sphinx; she neither rose, nor bent, but her fat fingers moved the fleet