Thorley Weir by E.F. Benson — Read

Lady Crowborough, as has been incidentally mentioned, was in the habit of hermetically sealing herself up in a small dark house in Half Moon Street for the winter months. This year as recounted, she had substituted a process of whole-hearted unsealedness in Egypt for a couple of months, but on her return had been more rigorously immured than ever, to counteract, it must be supposed, the possibly deleterious effects of so persistent an exposure to the air, and to fortify her for her coming visits to Charles' studio. In the evening, it is true, she often went out to dine, in a small brougham with the windows up, but except for her call yesterday on Charles' mother, the daylight of Piccadilly had scarcely beheld her since her return.

Windows in the house were always kept tightly shut, except owing to the carelessness or approaching asphyxia of servants, rooms were ventilated by having their doors set ajar, so that the air of the passage came into them, and dry stalks of lavender were continually burned all over the house, so that it was impregnated with their fresh fragrance. She was a standing protest against those modern fads, so she labelled them, of sitting in a draught, and calling it hygiene, and certainly her procedure led to excellent results in her own case, for her health, always good, became exuberant when she had spent a week or two indoors, her natural vitality seemed accentuated, and she ate largely and injudiciously without the smallest ill-effects. Between meals, she worked at fine embroidery without spectacles, sitting very upright in a small straight-backed cane chair.