Virginia Woolf: Night and Day

4. CHAPTER IV (continued)

"If that's your standard, you've nothing to be proud of," said Ralph grimly.

"Well, I must reflect with Emerson that it's being and not doing that matters," she continued.

"Emerson?" Ralph exclaimed, with derision. "You don't mean to say you read Emerson?"

"Perhaps it wasn't Emerson; but why shouldn't I read Emerson?" she asked, with a tinge of anxiety.

"There's no reason that I know of. It's the combination that's odd-- books and stockings. The combination is very odd." But it seemed to recommend itself to him. Mary gave a little laugh, expressive of happiness, and the particular stitches that she was now putting into her work appeared to her to be done with singular grace and felicity. She held out the stocking and looked at it approvingly.

"You always say that," she said. "I assure you it's a common 'combination,' as you call it, in the houses of the clergy. The only thing that's odd about me is that I enjoy them both--Emerson and the stocking."

A knock was heard, and Ralph exclaimed:

"Damn those people! I wish they weren't coming!"

"It's only Mr. Turner, on the floor below," said Mary, and she felt grateful to Mr. Turner for having alarmed Ralph, and for having given a false alarm.

"Will there be a crowd?" Ralph asked, after a pause.

"There'll be the Morrises and the Crashaws, and Dick Osborne, and Septimus, and all that set. Katharine Hilbery is coming, by the way, so William Rodney told me."

"Katharine Hilbery!" Ralph exclaimed.

"You know her?" Mary asked, with some surprise.

"I went to a tea-party at her house."