If,
instead of flattering him, she begins to bully him, strange things may
happen!"
The first week of solitude she spent in household drudgery. Bills had to
be paid, and there was now mercifully a little money to pay them with.
Though it was August, the house was to be "spring-cleaned," and Doris
had made a compact with her sulky maids that when it began she would do
no more than sleep and breakfast at home. She would spend her days in
the Campden Hill studio, and sup on a tray--anywhere. On these terms,
they grudgingly allowed her to occupy her own house.
The studio in which she worked was on the top of Campden Hill, and
opened into one of the pleasant gardens of that neighbourhood. Her
uncle, Charles Bentley, an elderly Academician, with an ugly, humorous
face, red hair, red eyebrows, a black skull-cap, and a general weakness
for the female sex, was very fond of his niece Doris, and inclined to
think her a neglected and underrated wife. He was too fond of his own
comfort, however, to let Meadows perceive this opinion of his; still
less did he dare express it to Doris.
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