"I wish you could help her to take an interest in something that other
people are interested in, Katharine," she observed, rather
plaintively, detailing her grievances. "It's all Henry's doing, you
know, giving up her parties and taking to these nasty insects. It
doesn't follow that if a man can do a thing a woman may too."
The morning was sufficiently bright to make the chairs and sofas in
Lady Otway's private sitting-room appear more than usually shabby, and
the gallant gentlemen, her brothers and cousins, who had defended the
Empire and left their bones on many frontiers, looked at the world
through a film of yellow which the morning light seemed to have drawn
across their photographs. Lady Otway sighed, it may be at the faded
relics, and turned, with resignation, to her balls of wool, which,
curiously and characteristically, were not an ivory-white, but rather
a tarnished yellow-white. She had called her niece in for a little
chat. She had always trusted her, and now more than ever, since her
engagement to Rodney, which seemed to Lady Otway extremely suitable,
and just what one would wish for one's own daughter. Katharine
unwittingly increased her reputation for wisdom by asking to be given
knitting-needles too.
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