“She was so artificial about it. Poor Nicholas said--trying to put a good face on it--that the making of books was a sealed book to him; and she was kittenish and shook her finger at him. ‘A pun! For shame!’ It sounded most silly.” “You got yourself in trouble,” interrupted Miss Lois with a rare censoriousness, “by trying to manage things. You always try to manage people, and they don’t like it. You started in directly we had left the table, and drew up chairs and told Eva to stand on a certain spot; it was exactly as if she had been hired to amuse the guests. I’ve been sure, ever since, that it made trouble.” Miss Augusta reared back in her straight chair and looked at her younger sister. In her silent look there was more power than in her spoken word. The air became impregnated with her conviction that Eva had shown base ingratitude. When finally she spoke it was to remark that there were many who were grateful for what she had done for them. Thinking of how, since my return, I had been kept to the question of Eva’s marriage, my own remarks became tinged with acrimony. She almost hastened with her reply. “My dear Mrs. Avery, you don’t think that I should take up your time--not to mention my own, which I assure you is filled with useful tasks--with this trivial scene at Lavinia Van Suydam’s? No, indeed! I really planned to request you to use your influence about the apportioning of the rooms in Nicholas’ house.” I must have stared with, almost, my mouth open. But her eyes were beaming with the best intentions. I made the reasonable request to know what she could possibly mean. She explained that she was afraid Nicholas would come to his death by the present distribution of sunlight in his home. “It was done by Eva,” she told me significantly. Another woman would have been disconcerted by my amused bewilderment; but the elder Miss Ingoldsby took it as a tribute to her ability as a public speaker. She sat waiting for me to heckle her. She knew how to wait for what she desired: it was I, and not she, who broke down. I said that I was sorry I did not understand. “Of course you remember how the small houses on the side streets are arranged?” she began her exposition of Eva’s iniquity. “On each floor there is one sunny room and one in which the sun never shines. It is unhealthy to get no sunshine,” she said through tightly pressed lips. She made me know that never willingly would she condemn. “And Eva has the sunny rooms?” I knew that she must: she loved the sun. “She has, Mrs. Avery.”