Henrietta also killed time now and then with sights; not churches or old pictures, of course she never went near masterpieces now she had ample leisure for seeing them, but Easter services, royal birthday processions, or battles of flowers. As she seldom broke her routine of idleness, these occasions excited her, not with pleasurable anticipation, but with a nervous fluster that she might somehow miss something; and the concierge, the porter, Madame, and the head-waiter, would all be flying about the hotel half an hour before it was necessary for her to start, sent on some perfectly useless errand connected with her outing. If it rained, if something went wrong, how she grumbled. And when she did see her show, it gave her very little pleasure. She had not in the least a child's mind; she was not pleased by small events, yet she grasped desperately after them, with an absurd, hazy idea that she was defrauded of her rights, if she did not see them. Another interest was an enormous collection of photographs of places, which she had not cared for at the time, and could not in the least remember; another her address-book of pensions and hotels, to which she was always adding new volumes; above all, grumbling. Favourite subjects were her kettle and her methylated spirits, whether the hotel would allow her to take up milk and sugar from breakfast, whether the chambermaid abstracted the biscuits she brought from dessert overnight. Everyone who came in contact with Miss Symons found they were made to listen to an endless story of a certain Elise who had stolen the biscuits and substituted other ones that were quite four days old, and of Elise's brazen behaviour when charged with the offence.