ore profound
and punctilious than those of any one else there, had apparently not
prevented her from making a thorough study of Alice's costume and a
correct conjecture as to its authorship.

Miss Anderson, who claimed a collateral Dutch ancestry by the Van Hook,
tucked in between her non-committal family name and the Julia given her
in christening, was of the ordinary slender make of American girlhood,
with dull blond hair, and a dull blond complexion, which would have left
her face uninteresting if it had not been for the caprice of her nose in
suddenly changing from the ordinary American regularity, after getting
over its bridge, and turning out distinctly 'retrousse'. This gave her
profile animation and character; you could not expect a girl with that
nose to be either irresolute or commonplace, and for good or for ill
Miss Anderson was decided and original. She carried her figure, which
was no great things of a figure as to height, with vigorous erectness;
she walked with long strides, knocking her skirts into fine eddies and
tangles as she went; and she spoke in a bold, deep voice, with tones
like a man in it, all the more amusing and fascinating because of the
perfectly feminine eyes with which she looked at you, and the nervous,
feminine gestures which she used while she spoke.

She took Mrs. Pasmer into her confidence with regard to Alice at
an early stage of their acquaintance, which from the first had a
patronising or rather protecting quality in it; if she owned herself
less fine, she knew herself shrewder, and more capable of coping with
actualities.

"I think she's moybid, Alice is," she said. "She isn't moybid in the
usual sense of the word, but she expects more of herself and of the
woyld generally than anybody's going to get out of it. She thinks she's
going to get as much as she gives, and that's a great mistake, Mrs.
Pasmer," she said, with that peculiar liquefaction of the canine letter
which the New-Yorkers alone have the trick of, and which it would be
tiresome and futile to try to represent throughout her talk.

"Oh yes, I quite agree with you," said Mrs. Pasmer, deep in her throat,
and reserving deeper still her enjoyment of this early wisdom of Miss
Anderson's.

"Now, even at church--she carries the same spirit into the church. She
doesn't make allowance for human nature, and the church does."

"Oh, certainly!" Mrs. Pasmer agreed.

"She isn't like a person that's been brought up in the c