ved there was nothing to be done but
to drift past each other in silence.

"I'm not a prodigy. I find it very difficult to say what I mean--" she
observed at length.

"It's a matter of temperament, I believe," Miss Allan helped her. "There
are some people who have no difficulty; for myself I find there are a
great many things I simply cannot say. But then I consider myself very
slow. One of my colleagues now, knows whether she likes you or not--let
me see, how does she do it?--by the way you say good-morning at
breakfast. It is sometimes a matter of years before I can make up my
mind. But most young people seem to find it easy?"

"Oh no," said Rachel. "It's hard!"

Miss Allan looked at Rachel quietly, saying nothing; she suspected that
there were difficulties of some kind. Then she put her hand to the back
of her head, and discovered that one of the grey coils of hair had come
loose.

"I must ask you to be so kind as to excuse me," she said, rising, "if
I do my hair. I have never yet found a satisfactory type of hairpin.
I must change my dress, too, for the matter of that; and I should be
particularly glad of your assistance, because there is a tiresome set of
hooks which I _can_ fasten for myself, but it takes from ten to fifteen
minutes; whereas with your help--"

She slipped off her coat and skirt and blouse, and stood doing her hair
before the glass, a massive homely figure, her petticoat being so short
that she stood on a pair of thick slate-grey legs.

"People say youth is pleasant; I myself find middle age far pleasanter,"
she remarked, removing hair pins and combs, and taking up her brush.
When it fell loose her hair only came down to her neck.

"When one was young," she continued, "things could seem so very serious
if one was made that way. . . . And now my dress."

In a wonderfully short space of time her hair had been reformed in its
usual loops. The upper half of her body now became dark green with black
stripes on it; the skirt, however, needed hooking at various angles, and
Rachel had to kneel on the floor, fitting the eyes to the hooks.

"Our Miss Johnson used to find life very unsatisfactory, I remember,"
Miss Allan continued. She turned her back to the light. "And then she
took to breeding guinea-pigs for their spots, and became absorbed in
that. I have just heard that the yellow guinea-pig has had a black baby.
We had a bet of sixpence on about it. She will be very triumphant."

The skirt