"Well, then put another stick on that fire and hang the kettle on the
hob--" she was washing the clay from her hands in an old brass basin.
"Don't get peeved with me because I'm grouchy and bossy--" she flung
over her shoulder at me. "I always start off badly when I'm tired and
that fool question always makes me just darned tireder!"

She reached for a fat brown teapot and dumped in tea-leaves
recklessly. "I'll be decenter directly I'm fed. I'm a beast just
before tea--you won't find me half bad half an hour from now--"

We were both silent while the water boiled. She shoved her table
nearer the fire, so near that I found myself looking down at the
writing things that were arranged so primly at one end. There was an
ink bottle on a gray blotter, a pewter tray for pens and a queer
shaped lump of bronze, a paper weight I supposed. I wouldn't have been
human if I could have kept my fingers off that bit of metal. I
pretended to pick it up accidentally but I did it as guiltily as a
child touches something forbidden. She didn't say a word, just watched
me mischievously while she arranged the tea cups on the other end of
the table. Presently she lighted a tiny temple lamp, melted a dab of
sealing wax in its wavering blue flames--rose-colored wax it was--and
it splashed out on the gray blotter like molten fire.

She took the bit of bronze from my fingers and pressed it firmly on
the wax.

"It's a mouth--" I murmured. "It's lips--"

"It's her kiss," she answered me. "That's the most beautiful and the
most difficult thing I ever made. It's Felicia Day's letter seal."