could not--that her parents would be so delighted--that
she, she wanted Miriam, "You, you are so different, so--reasonable--I
could live with you."

Minna's garden, her secure country house, her rich parents, no worries,
nothing particular to do, seemed for a moment to Miriam the solution
and continuation of all the gay day. There would be the rest of the
term--increasing spring and summer--Fraulein divested of all mystery and
fear and then freedom--with Minna.

She glanced at Minna--the cheerful pink face and the pink bulb of nose
came round to her and in an excited undertone she murmured something
about the apotheker.

"I should love to come--simply love it," said Miriam enthusiastically,
feeling that she would not entirely give up the idea yet. She would not
shut off the offered refuge. It would be a plan to have in reserve. She
had been daunted as Minna murmured by a picture of Minna and herself in
that remote garden--she receiving confidences about the apotheker--no
one else there--the Waldstrasse household blotted out--herself and Minna
finding pretexts day after day to visit the chemist's in the little
town.

21

Miriam almost ran home from seeing Minna into the three o'clock train.
.. dear beautiful, beautiful Hanover... the sunlight blazed from the
rain-sprinkled streets. Everything shone. Bright confident shops,
happy German cafes moved quickly by as she fled along. Sympathetic eyes
answered hers. She almost laughed once or twice when she met an eye and
thought how funny she must look "tearing along" with her long, thick,
black jacket bumping against her.... She would leave it off to-morrow
and go out in a blouse and her long black lace scarf. She imagined
Harriett at her side--Harriett's long scarf and longed to do the "crab
walk" for a moment or the halfpenny dip, hippety-hop. She did them in
her mind.

She heard the sound of her boot soles tapping the shining pavement as
she hurried along... she would write a short note to her mother "a girl
about my own age with very wealthy parents who wants a companion" and
enclose a note for Eve or Harriett... Eve, "Imagine me in Pomerania, my
dear"... and tell her about the coffee parties and the skating and the
sleighing and Minna's German Christmasses....

She saw Minna's departing face leaning from the carriage window, its
new gay boldness: "I shall no more when we are at home call you Miss
Henderson."

When she got back to Waldstrasse she found An