"I like pipes and cobwebs and old coats hanging on a nail, and plenty of litter and dust and confusion.
It's much better for work than tapestries and old armour and wood-carvings." Miss Bell did not open her little black notebook to record these things, however.

Instead, she picked up a number of the _London Magazine_ and looked at the title of an article pencil-marked on the pale green cover.

It was Janet Cardiff's article, and Lady Halifax had marked it.
Elfrida had read it before.

It was a fanciful recreation of the conditions of verse-making when Herrick wrote, very pleasurably ironical in its bearing upon more modern poetry-making.

It had quite deserved the praise she gave it in the corner which the _Age_ reserved for magazines.
"I want you to understand," she said slowly, "that it is only a way.