hing, would
become instantly the light in which Milly was to be read.

Such a matter as this may at all events speak of the style in which our
young woman could affect those who were near her, may testify to the
sort of interest she could inspire. She worked--and seemingly quite
without design--upon the sympathy, the curiosity, the fancy of her
associates, and we shall really ourselves scarce otherwise come closer
to her than by feeling their impression and sharing, if need be, their
confusion. She reduced them, Mrs. Stringham would have said, reduced
them to a consenting bewilderment; which was precisely, for that good
lady, on a last analysis, what was most in harmony with her greatness.
She exceeded, escaped measure, was surprising only because _they_ were
so far from great. Thus it was that on this wondrous day on the Bruenig
the spell of watching her had grown more than ever irresistible; a
proof of what--or of a part of what--Mrs. Stringham had, with all the
rest, been reduced to. She had almost the sense of tracking her young
friend as if at a given moment to pounce. She knew she shouldn't
pounce, she hadn't come out to pounce; yet she felt her attention
secretive, all the same, and her observation scientific. She struck
herself as hovering like a spy, applying tests, laying traps,
concealing signs. This would last, however, only till she should fairly
know what was the matter; and to watch was, after all, meanwhile, a way
of clinging to the girl, not less than an occupation, a satisfaction in
itself. The pleasure of watching, moreover, if a reason were needed,
came from a sense of her beauty. Her beauty hadn't at all originally
seemed a part of the situation, and Mrs. Stringham had, even in the
first flush of friendship, not named it, grossly, to any one; having
seen early that, for stupid people--and who, she sometimes secretly
asked herself, wasn't stupid?--it would take a great deal of
explaining. She had learned not to mention it till it was mentioned
first--which occasionally happened, but not too often; and then she was
there in force. Then she both warmed to the perception that met her own
perception, and disputed it, suspiciously, as to special items; while,
in general, she had learned to refine even to the point of herself
employing the word that most people employed. She employed it to
pretend that she was also stupid and so have done with the matter;
spoke of her friend as plain, as ugly even, in a ca