age had brought her to London. Before that she had lived in
B----, and was secretary of the Woman's Suffrage Association there.
Perhaps I had seen her name--Alice Thorpe? Now it was Malise. Her
husband was Clement Malise of "The Aurora."

This was said a little proudly, but with the pretty pride a wife has a
right to show when she believes she has a clever husband. And a good
woman I am sure she was beside whom I sat--kindly, conscientious,
earnest, spirited, full of aspiration and zeal gone astray. Pleasant to
look upon, too, when I came to separate her from her disfiguring and
thoroughly British travelling costume--a hat like an inverted basin,
with a long white ostrich feather, dingy, uncurled, and forlornly
drooping; a violet stuff gown all bunchy and tormented with woollen
ruffles, ruches, and knobby rosettes, and a dark blue bag of a
waterproof garment which I took to be the feminine correspondent of that
masculine wrap, the Ulster coat--a covering that would turn Apollo
himself into a bagman. Not very tall, solidly rather than gracefully
made, with a rather driven-together face, the excessively bulging
forehead crowding down upon a nose curved like a bird's beak, and a pair
of deep-set eyes of wonderful beauty--clear, gray, intense, brilliant,
and shaded by long dark lashes. Add a delicate, rather sarcastic mouth,
a complexion of exquisite fairness, dark brown hair without any warmth
in its color, hanging in slender short curls down her neck, and that is
Mrs. Malise.

We had a great many conversations after this initial one, and I believe
I have promised to look them up this winter in London. They're not so
very far from us--going by the underground; Notting Hill Gate's their
station, and I really feel a call to look after that baby. He's a fine
child, but was generally so miserable and cross that almost nobody took
other than offensive notice of him. At first I pitied his poor mother
when passengers and crew, even, made much of my baby when she came up
all placid, white as a snowdrop, daintily fresh, and feathery, and soft,
with her lace frills, like a little queen in nurse's arms; but my pity
was thrown away, for Mrs. Malise only said, "I cannot spare the time to
keep my baby in white, so made that gray flannel dressing gown for him
to travel in. It's capital, and not showing the dirt, will last the
whole journey." And the little thing was so untidy! For he was treated
exactly like a parcel; his parents handle