"IT'S just pick up, pick up, pick up after her all day long," Kate said, pushing the roses into the wire holder. "Cigarette ashes everywhere. I used to think Joe was bad enough, but Evelyn! And I don't believe she's ever shut a book after she's been reading it. She leaves them face down all over the house, or out on the grass under the lilac bush. Of course, I don't say anything; they're mostly Joe's, and if he doesn't care I'm sure I don't—but you know that certainly isn't any way to treat books!"
Charlotte glanced at her own neat rows, sets of George Eliot, Robert Louis Stevenson, Shakespeare, O. Henry, wedding-present Emerson, wedding-present Washington Irving, their backs still stiff, their pages stuck together, The Child's Book of Knowledge, all caged behind glass.
"No, you should use them, not abuse them."
"Look, Charlotte! If I do say so myself, this bowl is pretty sweet!"
Charlotte paused from admiration of her own floral arrangement and looked at Kate's.
"Yes, indeed, it is pretty, Aunt Kate. Thank you very much."
"Yours are lovely, Charlotte!"
