Page:Margaret Sherwood--A Puritan in Bohemia.djvu/111

A Puritan Bohemia Sèvres china, the diminutive spoons, the rolls, the jar of marmalade. Long shafts of light came into the studio. Anne thought of the way in which the autumn sunlight used to crawl in the early morning up the meadow by her father's parsonage. The grass was always covered with misty cobwebs that glistened in the sun. That was so long ago.

She poured her coffee into the white and gold cup. Miserere jumped mewing to her lap.

"You miserable, carnal-minded beast," she said, touching him affectionately. "You will never be happy, because you want the wrong thing. Somebody said once, 'Man is not a happy animal, because his appetite for sweet victual is so enormous.' You are like man."

There was a knock at the door. The janitor had brought Miss Bradford a letter. It was a typewritten refusal of the two pictures that she had sent to the Botticelli Art Club for the winter exhibition.

"I expected it," she said quietly, but