d leave things to Nature.... You were
more likely to have things if you thought about them. But Fraulein would
think and worry... alone with herself... with her great dark eyes and
bony forehead and thin pale cheeks... always alone, and just cancer
coming... I shall be like that one day... an old teacher and
cancer coming. It was silly to forget all about it and see Granny's
calceolarias in the sun... all that had to come to an end.... To forget
was like putting off repentance. Those who did not put it off saw when
the great waters came, a shining figure coming to them through the
flood.... If they did not they were like the man in a night-cap, his
mouth hanging open--no teeth--and skinny hands, playing cards on his
death-bed.

9

After bed-making, Fraulein settled a mending party at the window-end of
the schoolroom table. She sent no emissary but was waiting herself in
the schoolroom when they came down. She hovered about putting them into
their places and enquiring about the work of each one.

She arranged Miriam and the Germans at the saal end of the table for an
English lesson. Mademoiselle was not there. Fraulein herself took the
head of the table. Once more she enjoined silence--the whole table
seemed waiting for Miriam to begin her lesson.

The three or four readings they had done during the term alone in the
little room had brought them through about a third of the blue-bound
volume. Hoarsely whispering, then violently clearing her throat and
speaking suddenly in a very loud tone Miriam bade them resume the story.
They read and she corrected them in hoarse whispers. No one appeared
to be noticing. A steady breeze coming through the open door of the
summer-house flowed past them and along the table, but Miriam sat
stifling, with beating temples. She had no thoughts. Now and again in
correcting a simple word she was not sure that she had given the right
English rendering. Behind her distress two impressions went to and
fro--Fraulein and the raccommodage party sitting in judgment and the
whole roomful waiting for cancer.

Very gently at the end of half an hour Fraulein dismissed the Germans to
practise.

Herr Schraub was coming at eleven. Miriam supposed she was free until
then and went upstairs.

On the landing she met Mademoiselle coming downstairs with mending.

"Bossy coming?" she said feverishly in French; "are you going to the
saal?"

Mademoiselle stood contemplating her.

"I've just been