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Girl Reading, 1924

Georges Valmier

What should she do? She couldn't just lie here all day. Was she desperate enough to clean? Even to her jaded eyes, her half of the room looked dreadful. Reluctantly, she got off her bed and  wandered around, pushing stuff hither and yon. Each time she pushed, she found herself closer to her desk, where she'd been reading, The Exiles in Love, just happened to be lying open. I won't look at it until I've straightened up, she told herself, but somehow, she looked at it anyway, and soon she was sinking to her bed, lost in the story, which all too quickly came to an end. Jane closed the book and put it back on her bookshelf. She hated finishing one of her favorite books, because she knew she'd have to wait a few months before she could read it again. It was a rule she'd imposed on herself after reading The Various twice in a week — a disaster, like eating three large slices of chocolate cake at one sitting.
                                 ur The Penderwicks on Gardam Street
                                                                                av Jeanne Birdall