'Isn't it fun here?' she remarked. 'I knew you'd like it. Can you make
paper hats?'

'Oh, I suppose so. Beastly things. I hate them.'

'Oh! I was afraid you might, perhaps. I was going to ask you to show
some one how; but never mind. We're going to dance now. You wouldn't
care to join, I expect?'

Miranda would not.

'I hate dancing. I say.'

'Yes?'

'Do you really like this? And how much more is there?'

'Of course; don't you? About a quarter of an hour more. Then there's
coffee.' Beastly stuff. You'll hate it. I must go and dance.'

'There is certainly,' Mrs. Venables remarked, watching, 'something
refreshingly picturesque in the movements of the Southern peoples. The
lithe use of their limbs----'

She took in this impression with satisfaction.

'Don't think any of them can dance a bit, if you ask me,' Miranda
pronounced.

The unwary remark drew her mother's attention upon her. Mrs. Venables'
serious, fine eyes always seemed to weigh her daughter and to find her
wanting.

'Dear Miranda, I wish you would try to take more interest in people.
Miss Crevequer, now; she is entirely in their confidence, quite one of
them, so to speak.' She turned to Betty. 'You must help this foolish
child to a larger interest, and me to a deeper understanding. I have
been having some most interesting conversations. I have been trying to
glean from some of the girls their real attitude towards life in its
deeper issues; but they are naturally reserved with foreigners--and, no
doubt, with heretics. If one could convince them of one's very real
sympathy----You are very close to them, one can see. You and I must
have some long talks. And I suppose your brother has immense influence
with the men and boys?'

'Well, they're just f-friends of ours,' Betty said, stammering a good
deal, because she was tired.

There were times when the artist in Mrs. Venables sank a little in the
helper; but here she ran up against a very blank inapprehensiveness. She
had perforce to grasp that her uses in this capacity were purely
financial. It is not easy to give to those who will not receive, who do
not even apprehend their own need of gifts. This inapprehensiveness was
as a blank wall; there was no surmounting it. They looked at each other
from either side of a spiritual and social gulf; and the ignoring of its
existence on the one side made any attempts at throwing, as it were, a
rope across from the other impossible. The rope would have d