of buffy; one zephyr,
the other cotton, and the skirt is a sort of mixey pepper and salt with
lumps in the weaving--you know how I mean, something like our prawn
dresses only lighter and much more refined. The duffer is going to
join the tennis-club--he was at the Pooles' dance. I was simply
flabbergasted. He's a duffer."

The little German garden was disappearing from Miriam's eyes.... It was
cruel, cruel that she was not going to wear her blouses at home, at
the tennis-club... with Harriett.... It was all beginning again, after
all--the spring and tennis and presently boating--things were going
on... the smash had not come... why had she not stayed... just one more
spring?... how silly and hurried she had been, and there at home in the
garden lilac was quietly coming out and syringa and guelder roses and
May and laburnum and... everything... and she had run away, proud
of herself, despising them all, and had turned herself into Miss
Henderson,... and no one would ever know who she was.... Perhaps the
blouses would make a difference--it must be extraordinary to have
blouses.... Slommucky... untidy and slommucky Lilla's mother had called
them... and perhaps they would not fit her....

One of the voices rose to a sawing like the shrill whir of wood being
cut by machinery.... A derisive laugh broke into the strange sound. It
was Fraulein Pfaff's laughter and was followed by her voice thinner and
shriller and higher than the other. Miriam listened. What could be going
on?... both voices were almost screaming... together... one against the
other... it was like mad women.... A door broke open on a shriek. Miriam
bounded to the schoolroom door and opened it in time to see Anna lurch,
shouting and screaming, part way down the basement stairs. She turned,
leaning with her back against the wall, her eyes half-closed, sawing
with fists in the direction of Fraulein, who stood laughing in her
doorway. After one glance Miriam recoiled. They had not seen her.

"Ja," screamed Fraulein--"Sie konnen ihre paar Groschen haben!--Ihre
paar Groschen! Ihre paar Groschen!" and then the two voices shrieked
incoherently together until Fraulein's door slammed to and Anna's voice,
shouting and swearing, died away towards the basement.

12

Miriam had crept back to the schoolroom window. She stood shivering,
trying to forget the taunting words, and the cruel laughter. "You can
have your ha'pence!" Poor Anna. Her poor wages. Her bony face