graceful. Althea did not feel these defects, and was
well satisfied with her figure, especially with her carriage, which was
full of dignity; but it was her head that best pleased her, and her
head, indeed, had aspects of great benignity and sweetness. It was a
large head, crowned with coils of dull gold hair; her clothing followed
the fashions obediently, but her fashion of dressing her hair did not
vary, and the smooth parting, the carved ripples along her brow became
her, though they did not become her stiffly conventional attire. Her
face, though almost classic in its spaces and modelling, lacked in
feature the classic decision and amplitude, so that the effect was
rather that of a dignified room meagrely furnished. For these
deficiencies, however, Miss Jakes's eyes might well be accepted as
atonement. They were large, dark, and innocent; they lay far apart,
heavily lidded and with wistful eyebrows above them; their expression
varied easily from lucid serenity to a stricken, expectant look, like
that of a threatened doe, and slight causes could make Miss Jakes's eyes
look stricken. They did not look stricken now, but they looked
profoundly melancholy.

Here she stood, in the heartless little French sitting-room, meaning so
well, so desirous of the best, yet alone, uncertain of any aim, and very
weary of everything.

CHAPTER II.

Althea, though a cosmopolitan wanderer, had seldom stayed in an hotel
unaccompanied. She did not like, now, going down to the _table d'hote_
dinner alone, and was rather glad that her Aunt Julia and Aunt Julia's
two daughters were to arrive in Paris next week. It was really almost
the only reason she had for being glad of Aunt Julia's arrival, and she
could imagine no reason for being glad of the girls'. Tiresome as it was
to think of going to tea with Miss Harriet Robinson, to think of hearing
from her all the latest gossip, and all the latest opinions of the
latest books and pictures--alert, mechanical appreciations with which
Miss Robinson was but too ready--it was yet more tiresome to look
forward to Aunt Julia's appreciations, which were dogmatic and often
belated, and to foresee that she must run once more the gauntlet of Aunt
Julia's disapproval of expatriated Americans. Althea was accustomed to
these assaults and met them with weary dignity, at times expostulating:
'It is all very well for you, Aunt Julia, who have Uncle Tom and the
girls; I have nobody, and all my friend