-burnt; the place is
notched where it occurred, and for ever avoided. On the other hand, they
repose implicit faith in a reputation vouched for by their experience.
I was amused by the girl Eveleen's dotting of houses over the breadth of
five counties, where for this and that article of apparel she designed
to expend portions of a golden guinea, confident that she would get the
very best, and a shilling besides. The unwonted coin gave her the joy of
supposing she cheated the Mint of that sum. This guinea was a present to
the girl (to whom I owed my thrashing, by the way) that excused itself
under cover of being a bribe for sight of a mirror interdicted by the
implacable Kiomi. I wanted to have a look at my face. Now that the
familiar scenes were beginning to wear their original features to me, my
dread of personal hideousness was distressing, though Eveleen declared
the bad blood in my cheeks and eyes 'had been sucked by pounds of red
meat.' I wondered, whether if I stood up and walked to either one of
the three great halls lying in an obtuse triangle within view, I should
easily be recognized. When I did see myself, I groaned verily. With the
silence of profound resignation, I handed back to Eveleen the curious
fragment of her boudoir, which would have grimaced at Helen of Troy.

'You're feeling your nose--you've been looking at a glass!' Kiomi said,
with supernatural swiftness of deduction on her return.

She added for my comfort that nothing was broken, but confessed me to
be still 'a sight'; and thereupon drove knotty language at Eveleen. The
girl retorted, and though these two would never acknowledge to me that
any of their men had been in this neighbourhood recently, the fact was
treated as a matter of course in their spiteful altercation, and each
saddled the other with the mistake they had committed. Eveleen snatched
the last word. What she said I did not comprehend, she must have hit
hard. Kiomi's eyes lightened, and her lips twitched; she coloured like
the roofing smoke of the tent fire; twice she showed her teeth, as in a
spasm, struck to the heart, unable to speak, breathing in and out of a
bitterly disjoined mouth. Eveleen ran. I guessed at the ill-word spoken.
Kiomi sat eyeing the wood-ashes, a devouring gaze that shot straight and
read but one thing. They who have seen wild creatures die will have her
before them, saving the fiery eyes. She became an ashen-colour, I took
her little hand. Unconscious of me