in the hall, lying in wait for me on the stairs.
It gets into my hair.
Even when I go to ride, if I turn my head suddenly and surprise
it there is that smell!
Such a peculiar odor, too! I have spent hours in trying to analyze it,
to find what it smelled like.
It is not bad at first, and very gentle, but quite the subtlest, most
enduring odor I ever met.
In this damp weather it is awful. I wake up in the night and find it
hanging over me.
It used to disturb me at first. I thought seriously of burning the
house to reach the smell.
But now I am used to it. The only thing I can think of that it is like
is the color of the paper! A yellow smell.
There is a very funny mark on this wall, low down, near the mopboard. A
streak that runs round the room. It goes behind every piece of
furniture, except the bed, a long, straight, even smooch, as if it had
been rubbed over and over.
I wonder how it was done and who did it, and what they did it for.
Round and round and round round and round and round it makes me dizzy!
I really have discovered something at last.
Through watching so much at night, when it changes so, I have finally
found out.
The front pattern does move and no wonder! The woman behind shakes it!
Sometimes I think there are a great many women behind, and sometimes
only one, and she crawls around fast, and her crawling shakes it all
over.
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