nude oil painting

condemn them, or laugh at them, if they seek to do more or learn
more than custom has pronounced necessary for their sex.
When thus alone, I not unfrequently heard Grace Poole's laugh:
the same peal, the same low, slow ha! ha! which, when first heard, had

tray in her hand, go down to the kitchen and shortly return, generally
(oh, romantic reader, forgive me for telling the plain truth!) bearing
a pot of porter. Her appearance always acted as a damper to the
curiosity raised by her oral oddities: hard-featured and staid, she
had no point to which interest could attach. I made some attempts to
draw her into conversation, but she seemed a person of few words: a
monosyllabic reply usually cut short every effort of that sort.
The other members of the household, viz., John and his wife, Leah
the housemaid, and Sophie the French nurse, were decent people; but in
no respect remarkable; with Sophie I used to talk French, and