urmured. 'What are girls coming to, I wonder? Girton, you say; Girton!
That place at Cambridge! You speak Greek, of course; but how about
German?'

'Like a native,' I answered, with cheerful promptitude. 'I was at school
in Canton Berne; it is a mother tongue to me.'

'No, no,' the old lady went on, fixing her keen small eyes on my mouth.
'Those little lips could never frame themselves to "schlecht" or
"wunderschoen"; they were not cut out for it.'

'Pardon me,' I answered, in German. 'What I say, that I mean. The
never-to-be-forgotten music of the Fatherland's-speech has on my infant
ear from the first-beginning impressed itself.'

The old lady laughed aloud.

'Don't jabber it to me, child,' she cried. 'I hate the lingo. It's the
one tongue on earth that even a pretty girl's lips fail to render
attractive. You yourself make faces over it. What's your name, young
woman?'

'Lois Cayley.'

'Lois! _What_ a name! I never heard of any Lois in my life before,
except Timothy's grandmother. _You're_ not anybody's grandmother, are
you?'

'Not to my knowledge,' I answered, gravely.

She burst out laughing again.

'Well, you'll do, I think,' she said, catching my arm. 'That big mill
down yonder hasn't ground the originality altogether out of you. I adore
originality. It was clever of you to catch at the suggestion of this
arrangement. Lois Cayley, you say; any relation of a madcap Captain
Cayley whom I used once to know, in the Forty-second Highlanders?'

'His daughter,' I answered, flushing. For I was proud of my father.

'Ha! I remember; he died, poor fellow; he was a good soldier--and
his'--I felt she was going to say 'his fool of a widow,' but a glance
from me quelled her; 'his widow went and married that good-looking
scapegrace, Jack Watts-Morgan. Never marry a man, my dear, with a
double-barrelled name and no visible means of subsistence; above all, if
he's generally known by a nickname. So you're poor Tom Cayley's
daughter, are you? Well, well, we can settle this little matter between
us. Mind, I'm a person who always expects to have my own way. If you
come with _me_ to Schlangenbad, you must do as I tell you.'

'I _think_ I could manage it--for a week,' I answered, demurely.

She smiled at my audacity. We passed on to terms. They were quite
satisfactory. She wanted no references. 'Do I look like a woman who
cares about a reference? What are called _characters_ are usually essays
in how not to say it. You