her with the necessity for rigid lies, misery, and the procuring of
sums of money from the bag in the top drawer. Altogether, and
specially with the fresh difficulties of her mother's unaccountable
irritation and apprehensions, things were frightfully complicated.

It was late afternoon in November, and the electric lights were on;
however, they were lighted when they rose, whenever they were in the
rooms, for it was always gloomy if not positively dark; the bedroom
looked into a deep exterior well and the windows of the other
chamber opened on an uncompromising blank wall. Yet Linda, now
widely learned in such settings, rather liked her present situation.
They had occupied the same suite before, for one thing; and going
back into it had given her a sense of familiarity in so much that
always shifted.

Linda, personally, had changed very little; she was taller than four
years before, but not a great deal; she was, perhaps, more graceful--her
movements had become less sudden--more assured, the rapidly maturing
qualities of her mind made visible; and she had gained a surprising
repose.

Now, for example, she sat in a huge chair cushioned with black
leather and thought, with a frowning brow, of her mother. It was
clear that the latter was obviously worried about--to put it
frankly--her face. Her figure, she repeatedly asserted, could be
reasoned with; she had always been reconciled to a certain jolly
stoutness, but her face, the lines that appeared about her eyes
overnight, fairly drove her to hot indiscreet tears. She had been to
see about it, Linda knew; and returned from numerous beauty-parlors
marvelously rejuvenated--for the evening.