Finally she submits to the indignity of being tucked in for her nap; but even then her watch is beside her on the bed, ticking away the minutes till the half-hour is over, and she springs to her task.
"November 3. 241 Beacon Street. My room here has been nicely cleaned, but I bring into it a great heap of books and papers. I am going to try hard to be less disorderly than in the past."
How hard she did try, we well remember. The book trunk was a necessity of the summer flitting. It carried a full load from one book-ridden house to the other, and there were certain books—the four-volume Oxford Bible, the big-print Horace, the Greek classics, shabby of dress, splendid of type and margin—which could surely have found their way to and from Newport unaided.
One book she never asked for—the English dictionary! Once Maud, recently returned from Europe, apologized for having inadvertently taken the dictionary from 241 Beacon Street.
"How dreadful it was of me to take your dictionary! What have you done? Did you buy a new one?"
"I did not know you had taken it!"
"But—how did you get along without a dictionary?"
The elder looked her surprise.
"I never use a word whose meaning I do not know!"
"But the spelling?"