were heard on the stairs;
from the distance a thin, high voice called:

"Greta! You mustn't go up there!"

A little girl of twelve, with long fair hair under a wide-brimmed hat,
slipped in.

Her blue eyes opened wide, her face flushed up. That face was not
regular; its cheek-bones were rather prominent, the nose was flattish;
there was about it an air, innocent, reflecting, quizzical, shy.

"Oh!" she said.

Harz smiled: "Good-morning! This your dog?"

She did not answer, but looked at him with soft bewilderment; then
running to the dog seized him by the collar.

"Scr-ruff! Thou naughty dog--the baddest dog!" The ends of her hair fell
about him; she looked up at Harz, who said:

"Not at all! Let me give him some bread."

"Oh no! You must not--I will beat him--and tell him he is bad; then he
shall not do such things again. Now he is sulky; he looks so always when
he is sulky. Is this your home?"

"For the present; I am a visitor."

"But I think you are of this country, because you speak like it."

"Certainly, I am a Tyroler."

"I have to talk English this morning, but I do not like it very
much--because, also I am half Austrian, and I like it best; but my
sister, Christian, is all English. Here is Miss Naylor; she shall be
very angry with me."

And pointing to the entrance with a rosy-tipped forefinger, she again
looked ruefully at Harz.

There came into the room with a walk like the hopping of a bird an
elderly, small lady, in a grey serge dress, with narrow bands of
claret-coloured velveteen; a large gold cross dangled from a steel chain
on her chest; she nervously twisted her hands, clad in black kid gloves,
rather white about the seams.

Her hair was prematurely grey; her quick eyes brown; her mouth twisted
at one corner; she held her face, kind-looking, but long and narrow,
rather to one side, and wore on it a look of apology. Her quick
sentences sounded as if she kept them on strings, and wanted to draw
them back as soon as she had let them forth.

"Greta, how can, you do such things? I don't know what your father would
say! I am sure I don't know how to--so extraordinary--"

"Please!" said Harz.

"You must come at once--so very sorry--so awkward!" They were standing
in a ring: Harz with his eyebrows working up and down; the little lady
fidgeting her parasol; Greta, flushed and pouting, her eyes all dewy,
twisting an end of fair hair round her finger.

"Oh, look!" The coffee had boiled ove