The Star in the Window: A Novel

Excerpt from The Star in the Window: A NovelAs she sat and sewed this afternoon she kept her face steadfastly turned away from the familiar details of the room behind her. It was an ugly room. It was the back-parlor made over into a bedroom for her mother, who couldn't go over the stairs. It was square and high-studded, h'eavily corniced in dark brown plas ter, and in the center of the ceiling there was a rosette, round and ornate, which suggested the summer canna beds. From it hung a heavy glass chandelier, with six bronze arms, holding up six white frosted globes. In one corner of the room stood the bed - black wal nut, solid and substantial, its pillows covered with hand - crocheted shams, red-initialed in the center. Over the bed, suspended from the ceiling and fastened to the floor, appeared an awkward contrivance made of wheels and pulleys and ropes, a sort of derrick for moving the invalid.The invalid was a yellow and shrunken little crea ture. Rheumatism had been slowly bending and twist ing her for a quarter of a century now. The joints of her fingers curved backwards, and shone as if they had been oiled, where the skin was stretched. But she could still manage a needle. She held it deftly be tween her thumb and the knuckle of her forefinger.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.