with Fraulein Pfaff?"

"Of course, here with Fraulein Pfaff. I'd rather be in Germany than
anything."

Millie stood staring with her pout and her slightly raised eyebrows at
the frosted window.

"Would you stay here in the school for the holidays if Fraulein were
staying?"

"I'd do anything," said Millie, "to stay in Germany."

"You know," said Miriam gazing at her, "so would I--any mortal thing."

Millie's eyes had filled with tears.

"Then why don't ye stay?" said Judy, with gentle gruffness.

13

The house was shut up for the night.

Miriam looked up at the clock dizzily as she drank the last of her
coffee. It marked half-past eleven. Fraulein had told her to be ready
at a quarter to twelve. Her hands felt large and shaky and her feet were
cold. The room was stifling--bare and brown in the gaslight. She left
it and crept through the hall where her trunk stood and up the creaking
stairs. She turned up the gas. Emma lay asleep with red eyelids and
cheeks. Miriam did not look at Ulrica. Hurriedly and desolately she
packed her bag. She was going home empty-handed. She had achieved
nothing. Fraulein had made not the slightest effort to keep her. She was
just nothing again--with her Saratoga trunk and her hand-bag. Harriett
had achieved. Harriett. She was just going home with nothing to say for
herself.

"The carriage is here, my child. Make haste."

Miriam pushed things hurriedly into her bag. Fraulein had gone
downstairs.

She was ready. She looked numbly round the room. Emma looked very far
away. She turned out the gas. The dim light from the landing shone into
the room. She stood for a moment in the doorway looking back. The room
seemed to be empty. There seemed to be nothing in it but the black
screen standing round the bed that was no longer hers.

"Good-bye," she murmured and hurried downstairs.

In the hall Fraulein began to talk at once, talking until they were
seated side by side in the dark cab.

Then Miriam gazed freely at the pale profile shining at her side. Poor
Fraulein Pfaff, getting old.

Fraulein began to ask about Miriam's plans for the future. Miriam
answered as to an equal, elaborating a little account of circumstances
at home, and the doings of her sisters. As she spoke she felt that
Fraulein envied her her youth and her family at home in England--and
she raised her voice a little and laughed easily and moved, crossing her
knees in the cab.

She used sentimental German