She had passed into a proverb in the family,
and when anybody was observed to be peculiarly distressing, he was known
as a regular 'Juley.' The habit of her mind would have killed anybody
but a Forsyte at forty; but she was seventy-two, and had never looked
better. And one felt that there were capacities for enjoyment about her
which might yet come out. She owned three canaries, the cat Tommy,
and half a parrot--in common with her sister Hester;--and these poor
creatures (kept carefully out of Timothy's way--he was nervous about
animals), unlike human beings, recognising that she could not help being
blighted, attached themselves to her passionately.
She was sombrely magnificent this evening in black bombazine, with
a mauve front cut in a shy triangle, and crowned with a black velvet
ribbon round the base of her thin throat; black and mauve for evening
wear was esteemed very chaste by nearly every Forsyte.
Pouting at Swithin, she said:
"Ann has been asking for you. You haven't been near us for an age!"
Swithin put his thumbs within the armholes of his waistcoat, and
replied:
"Ann's getting very shaky; she ought to have a doctor!"
"Mr. and Mrs. Nicholas Forsyte!"
Nicholas Forsyte, cocking his rectangular eyebrows, wore a smile.
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