"Thank you; I seldom eat sweets. No, it is not sudden."
"Shall I make you a cup of coffee?"
"Thank you; I don't take coffee."
Mrs. Roscoe pushed a footstool across the rug.
"Thank you; I never need footstools."
"Superior to all the delights of womankind!"
Miss Spring came out of her abstraction and laughed. "Not superior; only bilious and long-legged." Then her face grew grave again. "Do you consider Pisa an attractive place for a permanent residence?" she inquired, fixing her eyes upon her hostess, who, having offered all the hospitable attentions in her power, was now leaning back again, her feet on a hassock.
"Attractive? Heavens! no."
"Yet you stay here? I think I have seen you here, at intervals, for something like seven years?"
"Don't count them; I hate the sound," said Mrs. Roscoe. "My wish is—my hope is—to live in Paris. I get there once in a while, and then I always have to give it up and come away. Italy is cheap, and Pisa is the cheapest place in Italy."