I gave the gramophone a jolly good cranking and dropped the needle onto the surface of the spinning disk.

“La-la-la-LAH, la-la la-la, LAH-la-la-la,” I sang along, even putting the little hitches in the right places, until the end of the main melody.

Then, because it seemed to suit the bleakness of the day, I adjusted the control to reduce the speed, which made the music sound as if the entire orchestra had suddenly been overcome with nausea: as if someone had poisoned the players.

Oh, how I adore music!

I flopped limply round the room, sagging with the slowing music like a doll whose sawdust stuffing is pouring out, until the gramophone’s spring ran all the way down and I collapsed on the floor in a boneless heap.

“I hope you haven’t been getting underfoot,” Feely said. “Remember what Father told us.”

I let my tongue crawl slowly out of my mouth like an earthworm emerging after a rain, but it was a wasted effort. Feely didn’t take her eyes from the sheet of paper she was studying.

“Is that your part?” I asked.

“As a matter of fact, it is.”

“Let’s have a dekko.”

“No. It’s none of your business.”

“Come on, Feely! I arranged it. If you get paid, I want half.”

Daffy inserted a finger in Bleak House to mark her place.

“ ‘In BG, OOF, a maid places a letter on the table,’ ” she said in a matter-of-fact tone.

“That’s all?” I asked.

“That’s it.”

“But what does it mean?”

“It means that in the background, out of focus, a maid places a letter on the table. Just as it says.”

Feely was pretending to be preoccupied, but I could tell by the rising color of her throat that she was listening. My sister Ophelia is like one of those exotic frogs whose skin changes color involuntarily as a warning. In the frog, it’s trying to make you think that it’s poisonous. It’s much the same in Feely.