THREE:��Yes, it��s very pleasant for you, Thomas,�� she said, ��spending the afternoon quietly among your books and leaving me to stand up to Mamma for the way you spoke to her at lunch, when we might have been such a pleasant family party. I don��t deny that Mamma gets worried at times, {50}and speaks when she had better have been silent, but������She had the satisfaction��and that made her step the more briskly and gave the sunshine this mysterious power of exhilaration��of knowing that she was serving and supplying. She loved the knowledge that never had Keeling��s typewriting been done for him so flawlessly, that never had the details of his business, such as came{195} within her ken, been so unerringly recorded. He might ask for the reference to the minutest point in a month-old letter, and she could always reinforce his deficient memory of it, and turn up the letter itself for confirmation of her knowledge. When days of overwhelming work had occurred, and he had suggested getting in a second typewriter to assist her, she had always, with a mixture of pride in her own efficiency, and of jealousy of a helping hand, proved herself capable of tackling any task that might be set her. Probably she could not have done it for any one else, but she could do it for him. It was easier, so she told herself, to do his work herself, than to instruct anybody else what to do. She allowed herself just that shade of self-deception, knowing all the time that there were plenty of ��routine�� letters that any one else could have done as well as she. But she did not want anybody else to do them.