ements in the
Madden household seemed to shrink automatically and make room for her,
whichever way she walked. A whole quarter of the unfinished house set
itself apart for her. Partitions altered themselves; door-ways moved
across to opposite sides; a recess opened itself, tall and deep, for it
knew not what statue--simply because, it seemed, the Lady Celia willed
it so.

When the family moved into this mansion, it was with a consciousness
that the only one who really belonged there was Celia. She alone could
behave like one perfectly at home. It seemed entirely natural to the
others that she should do just what she liked, shut them off from her
portion of the house, take her meals there if she felt disposed, and
keep such hours as pleased her instant whim. If she awakened them at
midnight by her piano, or deferred her breakfast to the late afternoon,
they felt that it must be all right, since Celia did it. She had one
room furnished with only divans and huge, soft cushions, its walls
covered with large copies of statuary not too strictly clothed, which
she would suffer no one, not even the servants, to enter. Michael
fancied sometimes, when he passed the draped entrance to this sacred
chamber, that the portiere smelt of tobacco, but he would not have
spoken of it, even had he been sure. Old Jeremiah, whose established
habit it was to audit minutely the expenses of his household, covered
over round sums to Celia's separate banking account, upon the mere
playful hint of her holding her check-book up, without a dream of
questioning her.

That the step-mother had joy, or indeed anything but gall and wormwood,
out of all this is not to be pretended. There lingered along in the
recollection of the family some vague memories of her having tried to
assert an authority over Celia's comings and goings at the outset, but
they grouped themselves as only parts of the general disorder of moving
and settling, which a fort-night or so quite righted. Mrs. Madden
still permitted herself a certain license of hostile comment when her
step-daughter was not present, and listened with gratification to what
the women of her acquaintance ventured upon saying in the same spirit;
but actual interference or remonstrance she never offered nowadays.
The two rarely met, for that matter, and exchanged only the baldest and
curtest forms of speech.

Celia Madden interested all Octavius deeply. This she must have done
in any case, if only because sh