stupendous thing--"weird and stupendous" she
told herself. The sunlight poured over her and her companions from the
great windows behind Fraulein Pfaff....

14

When breakfast was over and the girls were clearing the table, Fraulein
went to one of the great windows and stood for a moment with her hands
on the hasp of the innermost of the double frames. "Balde, balde,"
Miriam heard her murmur, "werden wir offnen konnen." Soon, soon we
may open. Obviously then they had had the windows shut all the winter.
Miriam, standing in the corner near the companion window, wondering what
she was supposed to do and watching the girls with an air--as nearly as
she could manage--of indulgent condescension--saw, without turning,
the figure at the window, gracefully tall, with a curious dignified
pannier-like effect about the skirt that swept from the small
tightly-fitting pointed bodice, reminding her of illustrations of
heroines of serials in old numbers of the "Girls' Own Paper." The dress
was of dark blue velvet--very much rubbed and faded. Miriam liked the
effect, liked something about the clear profile, the sallow, hollow
cheeks, the same heavy bonyness that Anna the servant had, but finer and
redeemed by the wide eye that was so strange. She glanced fearfully, at
its unconsciousness, and tried to find words for the quick youthfulness
of those steady eyes.

Fraulein moved away into the little room opening from the schoolroom,
and some of the girls joined her there. Miriam turned to the window. She
looked down into a little square of high-walled garden. It was gravelled
nearly all over. Not a blade of grass was to be seen. A narrow little
border of bare brown mould joined the gravel to the high walls. In
the centre was a little domed patch of earth and there a chestnut tree
stood. Great bulging brown-varnished buds were shining whitely from each
twig. The girls seemed to be gathering in the room behind her--settling
down round the table--Mademoiselle's voice sounded from the head of the
table where Fraulein had lately been. It must be _raccommodage_ thought
Miriam--the weekly mending Mademoiselle had told her of. Mademoiselle
was superintending. Miriam listened. This was a sort of French lesson.
They all sat round and did their mending together in French--darning
must be quite different done like that, she reflected.

Jimmie's voice came, rounded and giggling, "Oh, Mademoiselle! j'ai
une _potato_, pardong, pum de terre, j