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47 tacle, which might roll turbulently about one and leave one amused and unmoved, with one's small activities and one's dreams.

For several years, in fact since the death of her surviving parent, Teresa had filled out a microscopic income by work which was more pleasure than anything else. She had a slender but real artistic gift, developed in the course of her family's eccentric wanderings abroad. She modelled tiny bronzes, useful or purely decorative, little figures of animals, naked children, or fantastic beings out of fairyland; and she designed jewels of worked silver and gold and semi-precious stones whose colour was their chief value. These things were exhibited from time to time and sold—through an agent, as Teresa disliked money-dealings—for prices such as "art" commands in our country; the price of the exotic, the mysterious.

Her rooms had old-fashioned size and squareness. The living-room served also as a studio, and was ornamented by the remains of the family furniture, picked up abroad with more taste than money. Heavy tables and chairs of Italian walnut, cabinets and a desk elaborately inlaid, long curtains of faded but rich red brocade, and some pieces of embroidery on the grey walls, made a formal but agreeable setting. The dining-room was furnished chiefly with books—collected by Teresa's father in each