the table with a blotter, there had been a table by the door with a blotter, as Wiggerson spoke. She looked round, there it was ... the blue covered bed, the frilled pillows, high silky-looking bed curtains with some sort of little pattern on them, the huge clear fire, the big wicker chair. 3 Miriam laughed over her strange hot wine-clear wine-flavoured soup ... _two_ things about soup besides taking it from the side of your spoon, which everybody knows--you _eat_ soup, and you tilt your plate _away_, not towards you (chum along, chum along and eat your nice hot soup).... Her secure, shy, contented laugh was all right as a response to Mrs. Corrie, sitting at the head of the long table, a tall graceful bird, thin broad shoulders, with the broad black frill slipping from them, rather broad thin oval white face, wiry auburn Princess of Wales fringe coming down into a peak with hollow beaten-in temples each side of it, auburn coils shining as she moved her head and the chalky lisping voice that said little things and laughed at them and went on without waiting for answers. But to herself the laugh meant much more than liking Mrs. Corrie and holding her up and begging her to go on. It meant the large dark room, the dark invisible picture, the big pieces of strange dark furniture in gloomy corners, the huge screen near the door where the parlourmaid came in and out; the table like an island under the dome of the low-hanging rose-shaded lamp, the table-centre thickly embroidered with beetles’ wings, the little dishes stuck about, sweets, curiously crusted brown almonds, sheeny grey-green olives; the misty beaded glass of the finger bowls--Venetian glass from that shop in Regent Street--the four various wine glasses at each right hand, one on a high thin stem, curved and fluted like a shallow tulip, filled with hock; and floating in the warmth amongst all these things the strange, exciting, dry sweet fragrance coming from the mass of mimosa, a forest of little powdery blossoms, little stiff grey--the arms of railway signals at junctions--Japanese looking leaves--standing as if it were growing, in a shallow bowl under the rose-shaded lamp. “Mélie’s coming on Friday.”