Manchurian Books

We found ourselves in
a drab-coloured passage that was not only narrow and dirty but
desolatingly empty, and then he opened a door and revealed my aunt
sitting at the window with a little sewing-machine on a bamboo
occasional table before her, and "work"--a plum-coloured walking dress
I judged at its most analytical stage--scattered over the rest of the
apartment.
At the first glance I judged my aunt was plumper than she had been, but
her complexion was just as fresh and her China blue eye as bright as in
the old days.
"London," she said, didn't "get blacks" on her.
She still "cheeked" my uncle, I was pleased to find. "What are you old
Poking in for at THIS time--Gubbitt?" she said when he appeared, and
she still looked with a practised eye for the facetious side of things.
When she saw me behind him, she gave a little cry and stood up radiant.
Then she became grave.
I was surprised at my own emotion in seeing her. She held me at arm's
length for a moment, a hand on each shoulder, and looked at me with a
sort of glad scrutiny.


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