That way she had of forgetting people's presence was one of her
peculiarities. If she liked you she was content just to have you there,
but she never showed it except by a regretful glance when you went
away. She was very absent, too. One day I found her with a big, awkward
volume on her knee, heated, excited, and evidently put out.

"Is anything the matter?" I wanted to know.

"O yes," she answered desperately; "I've lost my pen, and I'm writing
for the mail."

"Why, where are you looking for it?" I asked.

She glanced at me, and then at the book.

"I--I believe," she faltered, "I was looking for it among the p's in
the French dictionary."

On another occasion I watched her revising a manuscript. As she wrote
her emendations she gummed them on over the old copy, and she was so
absorbed that at last she put the gum-brush into the ink-bottle.
Discovering her mistake, she gave a little disconcerted sort of laugh,
and took the brush away to wash it. She returned presently, examining
it critically to see if it were perfectly cleansed, and having
satisfied herself, she carefully put it back in the ink-bottle.

But perhaps the funniest instance of this peculiarity of hers was one
that happened in the Grosvenor Gallery on a certain occasion. She had
been busy with her catalogue, doing the pictures conscientiously, and