in stacks
A few books close at hand.
Her favourite reading was a mouldy old book called Urn Burial, that she read in bed; and she liked creepy, rustling things like tortoises and cacti. She had a dark, haggard face that made one think of an old graveyard, but her eyes were so dark and deep that when one talked to her, one talked into her eyes, the way one drops a pebble into a pool to watch for the ripples.
In reading an old anthology of short stories (Modern English Short Stories: Second Series), I happened to like one by Frances Towers – who does more than describe sitting rooms – and her posthumous collection Tea with Mr. Rochester did not disappoint.