felt sorry for
Fraulein, tall and gaunt, moving about in them alone, alone with her own
dark eyes, curtains hanging motionless at the windows... was it really
bad to tight-lace? The English girls, except Millie and Solomon all had
small waists. She wished she knew. She placed her large hands round her
waist. Drawing in her breath she could almost make them meet. It was e
feel them pulling her arms from their sockets, dragging her shoulders
down, throwing out her chest, to spray canful after canful through a
great wide rose, sprinkling her ankles sometimes, and to grow so warm
that she would not feel the heat. Bella Lyndon had never worn stays;
playing rounders so splendidly, lying on the grass between the games
with her arms under her head... simply disgusting, someone had said...
who... a disgusted face... nearly all the girls detested Bella.

Going through the hall on her way down to the basement she heard the
English voices sounding quietly out into the afternoon from the rooms
above. Flat and tranquil they sounded, Bertha and Jimmie she heard,
Gertrude's undertones, quiet words from Millie. She felt she would like
a corner in the English room for the afternoon, a book and an occasional
remark--"Mr. Barnes of New York"--she would not be able to read her
three yellow books in the German bedroom. She felt at the moment glad
to be robbed of them. It would be much better, of course. There was no
sound from the German rooms. She pictured sleeping faces. It was cooler
in the basement--but even there the air seemed stiff and dusty with the
heat.

Why did the hanging garments remind her of All Saints' Church and Mr.
Brough?... she must tell Harriett that in her letter... that day they
suddenly decided to help in the church decorations... she remembered the
smell of the soot on the holly as they had cut and hacked at it in the
cold garden, and Harriett overturning the heavy wheelbarrow on the way
to church, and how they had not laughed because they both felt solemn,
and then there had just been the three Anwyl girls and Mrs. Anwyl and
Mrs. Scarr and Mr. Brough in the church-room all being silly about Birdy
Anwyl roasting chestnuts, and how silly and affected they were when a
piece of holly stuck in her skirt.

5

Coming up the basement stairs in response to the tea-gong, Miriam
thought there were visitors in the hall and hesitated; then there was
Pastor Lahmann's profile disappearing towards the door and Fraulein