But there is something else about that paper—the smell! I noticed it the moment we came into the room, but with so much air and sun it was not bad. Now we have had a week of fog and rain, and whether the windows are open or not, the smell is here.

 

It creeps all over the house.

 

I find it hovering in the dining-room, skulking in the parlor, hiding in the hall, lying in wait for me on the stairs.

 

It gets into my hair.

 

Even when I go to ride, if I turn my head suddenly and surprise it—there is that smell!

 

Such a peculiar odor, too! I have spent hours in trying to analyze it, to find what it smelled like.

It is not bad—at first, and very gentle, but quite the subtlest, most enduring odor I ever met.

 

In this damp weather it is awful. I wake up in the night and find it hanging over me.

 

It used to disturb me at first. I thought seriously of burning the house—to reach the smell.

But now I am used to it. The only thing I can think of that it is like is the color of the paper! A yellow smell.

Scorched wood and oversteeped chamomile petals pressed wetly into beeswax, brittle fossilized amber, a whisper of honeyed hay and saffron, and the sweet decay of overripe butter figs.