The Circular Staircase by Mary Roberts Rinehart Fiction Classics Mystery & Detective

<p><strong>For twenty years I had been perfectly comfortable;</strong> for twenty years I had had the window-boxes filled in the spring the carpets lifted the awnings put up and the furniture covered with brown linen; for as many summers I had said good-bye to my friends and after watching their perspiring hegira had settled down to a delicious quiet in town where the mail comes three times a day and the water supply does not depend on a tank on the roof. And then -- the madness seized me. When I look back over the months I spent at Sunnyside I wonder that I survived at all. As it is I show the wear and tear of my harrowing experiences. I have turned very gray -- Liddy reminded me of it only yesterday by saying that a little bluing in the rinse-water would make my hair silvery instead of a yellowish white. I hate to be reminded of unpleasant things and I snapped her off. No I said sharply I'm not going to use bluing at my time of life or starch either.</p>