Sublime

rebarbative

‘Dorian Gray’.

Mrs. Thorpe was a widow, and not a very rich one; she was a good-humoured, well-meaning woman, and a very indulgent mother. Her eldest daughter had great personal beauty, and the younger ones, by pretending to be as handsome as their sister, imitating her air, and dressing in the same style, did very well.

ruth

Lady Plackett took the binoculars. Her sight was less keen than her daughter’s but she too agreed that the girl was Ruth. She turned to Miss Somerville. ‘This is unfortunate,’ she said. ‘And quite irregular. The girl is a Jewish refugee who seems to think that she is entitled to every sort of privilege.’

The Hathaways were an unworldly lot, eccentric and cheerful and preoccupied with books and art and music. They lived in a ramshackle cottage, but instead of repairing door frames or holes in the ceiling, they pruned roses and wrote poetry. If a chair leg broke off, they merely wedged a stack of books beneath it. Their priorities bewildered him.