Two years ago we deliberately smashed her spectacles, which she had adopted at five-and-twenty.
"But they are more convenient than eye-glasses," she urged obtusely.
"That argument is beneath you, dear," we replied.

"If your hair were not prematurely grey, we might permit the spectacles, hideous as they are, but a combination of the two is impossible; the world shall not convict you of failing sight when you are guilty only of petty astigmatism!" The grey satin had been chosen for this dinner, and Salemina was dressed, with the exception of the pretty pearl-embroidered waist that has to be laced at the last moment, and had slipped on a dressing jacket to come down from her room in the second story, to be advised in some trifling detail.

She looked unusually well, I thought: her eyes were bright and her cheeks flushed, as she rustled in, holding her satin skirts daintily away from the dusty carpets.
Now, from the morning of our arrival we have had trouble with the Mullarkey door-knobs, which come off continually, and lie on the floors at one side of the door or the other.

Benella followed Salemina from her room, and, being in haste, closed the door with unwonted energy.

She heard the well-known rattle and clang, but little suspected that, as one knob dropped outside in the hall, the other fell inside, carrying the rod of connection with it.