s, and did not wear crinoline.

And yet, looking back, I have a very clear picture of her in my mind,
standing in the passage by her box (a very rough one, very strongly
corded, and addressed in the clearest of handwriting), purse in hand,
and paying the cabman with perfect self-possession. An upright, quite
ladylike, but rather old-fashioned little figure, somewhat quaint from
the simplicity of her dress. She had a rather quaint face, too, with a
nose slightly turned up, a prominent forehead, a charming mouth, and
most beautiful dark eyes. Her hair was rolled under and tied at the top
of her head, and it had an odd tendency to go astray about the parting.

This was, perhaps, partly from a trick she seemed to have of doing her
hair away from the looking-glass. She stood to do it, and also (on one
leg) to put on her shoes and stockings, which amused us. But she was
always on her feet, and seemed unhappy if she sat idle. We took her for
a walk the morning after her arrival, and walked faster than we had ever
walked before to keep pace with our new friend, who strode along in her
thick boots and undistended skirts with a step like that of a kilted
Highlander.

When we came into the town, however, she was quite willing to pause
before the shop-windows, which gave her much entertainment.

"I'm afraid I should always be looking in at the windows if I lived in a
town," she said, "there are such pretty things."

Eleanor laughs when I remind her of that walk, and how we stood still by
every chemist's door because she liked the smell. When anything
interested her, she stopped, but at other times she walked as if she
were on the road to some given place, and determined to be there in good
time; or perhaps it would be more just to say that she walked as if
walking were a pleasure to her. It was walking--not strolling. When she
was out alone, I know that she constantly ran when other people would
have walked. It is a north-country habit, I think. I have seen
middle-aged Scotch and Yorkshire ladies run as lightly as children.

It was not the fashionable time of day, so that we could not, during
that walk, show Eleanor the chief characters of Riflebury. But just as
we were leaving High Street she stopped and asked, "Who is that lady?"

"The one in the mauve silk?" said Matilda. "That is one of the cavalry
ladies. All the cavalry ladies dress grandly."

It was a Mrs. Perowne. She was sailing languidly down the other side of
the