On the stem of an eccentric family tree she was felt to be the perfect flower of artistic impulses, and her enclosed life in the sombre old house had not succeeded in cultivating in her the slightest resemblance to an artificial variety.

She was obviously, inevitably, impulsively the original product, and Uncle Percival never realised this more hopelessly than in that unresponsive headshake of dismissal.

Laura could be kind, he knew, but she was kind, as she was a poet, when the mood prompted.
"Presently--not now," she said, "I want to talk to you awhile.

Do you know, Aunt Rosa was here again to-day and she still tries to persuade us to sell the house and move uptown.

It is so far for her to come from Seventieth Street, she says, but as for me I'd positively hate the change and Aunt Angela can't even stand the mention of it." She leaned forward and stroked his arm with one of her earnest gestures.