down with a feather."
A highly overwrought figure of speech on the part of Mrs. Worthington,
seeing that the feather which would have prostrated her must have met
a resistance of some one hundred and seventy-five pounds of solid
avoirdupois.
"After all she said about him, too!" seeking to draw her friend into
some participation in her own dumbfoundedness.
"Well, you ought to know Fanny Larimore's a fool, don't you?"
"Well, but I just can't get over it; that's all there is about it."
And Mrs. Worthington went about completing the adornment of her person
in a state of voiceless stupefaction.
In full garb, she presented the figure of a splendid woman; trim and
tight in a black silk gown of expensive quality, heavy with jets which
hung and shone, and jangled from every available point of her person.
Not a thread of her yellow hair was misplaced. She shone with
cleanliness, and her broad expressionless face and meaningless blue
eyes were set to a good-humored readiness for laughter, which would be
wholesome if not musical. She exhaled a fragrance of patchouly or
jockey-club, or something odorous and "strong" that clung to every
article of her apparel, even to the yellow kid gloves which she would
now be forced to put on during her ride in the car. Mrs. Dawson,
attired with equal richness and style, showed more of individuality in
her toilet.
As they quitted the house she observed to her friend:
"I wish you'd let up on that smell; it's enough to sicken a body."
"I know you don't like it, Lou," was Mrs. Worthington's apologetic and
half disconcerted reply, "and I was careful as could be. Give you my
word, I didn't think you could notice it."
"Notice it? Gee!" responded Mrs. Dawson.
These were two ladies of elegant leisure, the conditions of whose
lives, and the amiability of whose husbands, had enabled them to
develop into finished and professional time-killers.
Their intimacy with each other, as also their close acquaintance with
Fanny Larimore, dated from a couple of years after that lady's
marriage, when they had met as occupants of the same big up-town
boarding house. The intercourse had never since been permitted to die
out. Once, when the two former ladies were on a visit to Mrs.
Larimore, seeing the flats in course of construction, they were at
once assailed with the desire to abandon their hitherto nomadic life,
and settle to the responsibilities of housekeeping; a scheme which
they carried into effect as soon as the houses became habitable.
There was a Mr. Lorenzo Worthington; a gentleman employed for many
years past in the custom house. Whether he had been overlooked, which
his small unobtrusive, narrow-chested person made possible—or whether
his many-sided usefulness had rendered him in a manner indispensable
to his employers, does not appear; but he had remained at his post
during the various changes of administration that had gone by since
his first appointment.
During intervals of his work—intervals often occurring of afternoon
hours, when he had been given night work—he was fond of sitting at
the sunny kitchen window, with his long thin nose, and shortsighted
eyes plunged between the pages of one of his precious books: a small
hoard of which he had collected at some cost and more self-denial.
One of the grievances of his life was the necessity under which he
found himself of protecting his treasure from the Philistine abuse and
contempt of his wife. When they moved into the flat, Mrs. Worthington,
during her husband's absence, had ranged them all, systematically
enough, on the top shelf of the kitchen closet to "get them out of the
way." But at this he had protested, and taken a positive stand, to
which his wife had so far yielded as to permit that they be placed on
the top shelf of the bedroom closet; averring that to have them laying
around was a thing that she would not do, for they spoilt the looks of
any room.
He had not foreseen the possibility of their usefulness being a
temptation to his
A highly overwrought figure of speech on the part of Mrs. Worthington,
seeing that the feather which would have prostrated her must have met
a resistance of some one hundred and seventy-five pounds of solid
avoirdupois.
"After all she said about him, too!" seeking to draw her friend into
some participation in her own dumbfoundedness.
"Well, you ought to know Fanny Larimore's a fool, don't you?"
"Well, but I just can't get over it; that's all there is about it."
And Mrs. Worthington went about completing the adornment of her person
in a state of voiceless stupefaction.
In full garb, she presented the figure of a splendid woman; trim and
tight in a black silk gown of expensive quality, heavy with jets which
hung and shone, and jangled from every available point of her person.
Not a thread of her yellow hair was misplaced. She shone with
cleanliness, and her broad expressionless face and meaningless blue
eyes were set to a good-humored readiness for laughter, which would be
wholesome if not musical. She exhaled a fragrance of patchouly or
jockey-club, or something odorous and "strong" that clung to every
article of her apparel, even to the yellow kid gloves which she would
now be forced to put on during her ride in the car. Mrs. Dawson,
attired with equal richness and style, showed more of individuality in
her toilet.
As they quitted the house she observed to her friend:
"I wish you'd let up on that smell; it's enough to sicken a body."
"I know you don't like it, Lou," was Mrs. Worthington's apologetic and
half disconcerted reply, "and I was careful as could be. Give you my
word, I didn't think you could notice it."
"Notice it? Gee!" responded Mrs. Dawson.
These were two ladies of elegant leisure, the conditions of whose
lives, and the amiability of whose husbands, had enabled them to
develop into finished and professional time-killers.
Their intimacy with each other, as also their close acquaintance with
Fanny Larimore, dated from a couple of years after that lady's
marriage, when they had met as occupants of the same big up-town
boarding house. The intercourse had never since been permitted to die
out. Once, when the two former ladies were on a visit to Mrs.
Larimore, seeing the flats in course of construction, they were at
once assailed with the desire to abandon their hitherto nomadic life,
and settle to the responsibilities of housekeeping; a scheme which
they carried into effect as soon as the houses became habitable.
There was a Mr. Lorenzo Worthington; a gentleman employed for many
years past in the custom house. Whether he had been overlooked, which
his small unobtrusive, narrow-chested person made possible—or whether
his many-sided usefulness had rendered him in a manner indispensable
to his employers, does not appear; but he had remained at his post
during the various changes of administration that had gone by since
his first appointment.
During intervals of his work—intervals often occurring of afternoon
hours, when he had been given night work—he was fond of sitting at
the sunny kitchen window, with his long thin nose, and shortsighted
eyes plunged between the pages of one of his precious books: a small
hoard of which he had collected at some cost and more self-denial.
One of the grievances of his life was the necessity under which he
found himself of protecting his treasure from the Philistine abuse and
contempt of his wife. When they moved into the flat, Mrs. Worthington,
during her husband's absence, had ranged them all, systematically
enough, on the top shelf of the kitchen closet to "get them out of the
way." But at this he had protested, and taken a positive stand, to
which his wife had so far yielded as to permit that they be placed on
the top shelf of the bedroom closet; averring that to have them laying
around was a thing that she would not do, for they spoilt the looks of
any room.
He had not foreseen the possibility of their usefulness being a
temptation to his
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