e cried, in quivering tones, "Die Herzen auf!" "Up
with windows! Up with hearts!"

Her hands struggled with the hasp of the long-closed outer frame. The
girls crowded round as the lattices swung wide. The air poured in.

Miriam stood in a vague crowd seeing nothing. She felt the movement
of her own breathing and the cool streaming of the air through her
nostrils. She felt comely and strong.

"That's a thrush," she heard Bertha Martin say as a chattering flew
across a distant garden--and Fraulein's half-singing reply, "Know you,
children, what the thrush says? Know you?" and Minna's eager voice
sounding out into the open, "D'ja, d'ja, ich, weiss--Ritzifizier, sagt
sie, Ritzifizier, das vierundzwanzigste Jahr!" and voices imitating.

"Spring! Spring! Spring!" breathed Clara, in a low sing-song.

Miriam found herself with her hands on the doors leading into the saal,
pushing them gently. Why not? Everything had changed. Everything was
good. The great doors gave, the sunlight streamed from behind her into
the quiet saal. She went along the pathway it made and stood in the
middle of the room. The voices from the schoolroom came softly, far
away. She went to the centre window and pushing aside its heavy curtains
saw for the first time that it had no second pane like the others, but
led directly into a sort of summer-house, open in front and leading by a
wooden stairway down to the garden plot. Up the railing of the stairway
and over the entrance of the summer-house a creeping plant was putting
out tiny leaves. It was in shadow, but the sun caught the sharply peaked
gable of the summer-house and on the left, the tops of the high shrubs
lining the pathway leading to the wooden door and the great balls
finishing the high stone gateway shone yellow with sunlit lichen. She
heard the schoolroom windows close and the girls clearing away the
breakfast things and escaped upstairs singing.

Before she had finished her duties a summons came. Jimmie brought the
message, panting as she reached the top of the stairs.

"Hurry up, Hendy!" she gasped. "You're one of the distinguished ones, my
dear!"

"What do you mean?" Miriam began apprehensively as she turned to go.
"Oh, Jimmie----" she tried to laugh ingratiatingly. "_Do_ tell me what
you mean?" Jimmie turned and raised a plump hand with a sharply-quirked
little finger and a dangle of lace-edged handkerchief.

"You're a _swell,_ my dear. You're in with the specials and the classic