ny," said Blanche casually. She was pleased at the signs of a
thaw; she was one of those women who are as eager to stand well with
their own sex as with men and take as much care to ensure it.

"You would do well in London, Vassie," she went on, fixing her eyes on
the girl after a habit she had, and which always gave the impression
that she was talking to the only person on earth who really interested
her; "you are very beautiful, you know."

Vassie flushed with pleasure and did not trouble to deny the obvious
truth of the statement. She knew she was the only girl there with
undoubted beauty; what she did not know was that she was also the only
one who would never be very attractive to men. She looked at Phoebe's
retreating chin, at Judith's prominent cheek-bones and deep-set,
melancholy eyes with the bistre stains below them, at Blanche's
subtly-broad face with its too-small lips, and unconsciously she put up
her hand to feel her own lovely contours and smooth skin.

Blanche slipped a firm, cool hand into hers. "Don't worry, Vassie," she
said in a low voice; "I foresee great things for you. You're a wonderful
girl, my dear. Now, I suppose we ought to be helping those two poor,
dear men again." She rose to her feet with one of the lithe movements
that always seemed rather surprising in a girl of her firmly-knit build,
which would have been heavy had it not been for its grace. Vassie, with
a fulness that was so much more supple to a casual glance, yet followed
her less beautifully.

"Still, a lot can be done with her," thought Blanche, watching. She
motioned to her to come and help her with a row that had not yet been
gathered into a bundle, and Vassie stooped over it with her.

"Why, what's that?" exclaimed Blanche, catching sight of something grey
that went rustling swiftly downwards between the straws. She thrust her
hand down, thinking it was a field-mouse, and caught the thing. A
speckled toad wriggled in her fingers, lustily enough, but it was a toad
that had seen tragedy. The keen edge of a scythe must have caught it,
for one side of its head was shorn away; the eye had just been missed,
but the inside of the poor little animal's mouth and throat lay exposed,
pulsating and brilliantly red--a purer hue of blood was never seen than
in that grey creature.

Blanche cried out in pity, while Vassie calmly advised death, seconded
by Phoebe, and Judith looked away, sorry and sick, Blanche called to
Ishmael, using hi