e long narrow pavement, with the
children at her side.

She had shown nothing to the young man but composed appreciation of his
conduct. She was, however, conscious that he would not have been so kind
to any girl he happened to meet. "He admires me," thought Eliza to
herself. For all that, she was not satisfied with the encounter. She
felt that she had not played her part well; she had been too--had been
too--she did not know what. She thought if she had held her head higher
and shown herself less thankful--yes, there had been something amiss in
her behaviour that ought to be corrected. She could not define what she
had done, or ought to have done. How could she? An encounter of this
sort was as new to her as Mrs. Rexford's sewing machine, which she had
not yet been allowed to touch. Yet had she been shut up alone with the
machine, as she was now shut up to revise her own conduct within
herself, she would, by sheer force of determined intelligence, have
mastered its intricacy to a large degree without asking aid. And so with
this strong idea that she must learn how to act differently to this
young man; dim, indeed, as was her idea of what was lacking, or what was
to be gained, she strove with it in no fear of failure.

She raised her head as she walked, and recast the interview just past in
another form more suited to her vague ideal, and again in another. She
had a sense of power within her, that sense which powerful natures have,
without in the least knowing in what direction the power may go forth,
or when they will be as powerless--as Samson shaven. She only felt the
power and its accompanying impulses; she supposed that in all ways, at
all times, it was hers to use.

In a day or two Cyril Harkness met Eliza in the street again, and took
occasion to speak to her. This time she was much less obliging in her
manner. She threw a trifle of indifference into her air, looking in
front of her instead of at him, and made as if she wished to proceed.
Had this interview terminated as easily as the other, she would have
been able to look back upon it with complete satisfaction, as having
been carried on, on her part, according to her best knowledge of
befitting dignity; but, unfortunately for her, the young American was of
an outspoken disposition, and utterly untrammelled by those instincts of
conventionality which Eliza had, not by training, but by inheritance
from her law-abiding and custom-loving Scotch ancestry.

"Say