12. MISS WINCHELSEA'S HEART

Miss Winchelsea was going to Rome. The matter had filled her mind for
a month or more, and had overflowed so abundantly into her conversation
that quite a number of people who were not going to Rome, and who were
not likely to go to Rome, had made it a personal grievance against her.
Some indeed had attempted quite unavailingly to convince her that Rome
was not nearly such a desirable place as it was reported to be, and
others had gone so far as to suggest behind her back that she was
dreadfully "stuck up" about "that Rome of hers." And little Lily
Hardhurst had told her friend Mr. Binns that so far as she was concerned
Miss Winchelsea might "go to her old Rome and stop there; SHE (Miss Lily
Hardhurst) wouldn't grieve." And the way in which Miss Winchelsea put
herself upon terms of personal tenderness with Horace and Benvenuto
Cellini and Raphael and Shelley and Keats--if she had been Shelley's
widow she could not have professed a keener interest in his grave--was
a matter of universal astonishment. Her dress was a triumph of tactful
discretion, sensible, but not too "touristy"--Miss Winchelsea, had a
great dread of being "touristy"--and her Baedeker was carried in a cover
of grey to hide its glaring red. She made a prim and pleasant little
figure on the Charing Cross platform, in spite of her swelling pride,
when at last the great day dawned, and she could start for Rome. The
day was bright, the Channel passage would be pleasant, and all the
omens promised well. There was the gayest sense of adventure in this
unprecedented departure.

She was going with two friends who had been fellow-students with her
at the training college, nice honest girls both, though not so good at
history and literature as Miss Winchelsea. They both looked up to her
immensely, though physically they had to look down, and she anticipated
some pleasant times to be spent in "stirring them up" to her own pitch
of aesthetic and historical enthusiasm. They had secured seats already,
and welcomed her effusively at the carriage door. In the instant
criticism of the encounter she noted that Fanny had a slightly
"touristy" leather strap, and that Helen had succumbed to a serge jacket
with side pockets, into which her hands were thrust. But they were much
too happy with themselves and the expedition for their friend to
attempt any hint at the moment about these things. As soon as the first
ecstasies were over--Fanny's enth