see how near the spark went to fire the
train, yet flickered down and died; how many a false scent crossed the
true one, and threw the tracker out!

Old Maisie's powers of sustained attention were, of course, much less
than she supposed, and her visitor's pleasant voice, rippling on in the
growing dusk, was more an anodyne than a stimulant. She did not go to
sleep--people don't! But something that very nearly resembled sleep must
have come to her. Whatever it was, she got clear of it to find, with
surprise, that Mrs. Thrale, with her bonnet off, was making toast at
the glowing wood-embers; and that candles were burning and that, somehow
tea had germinated.

"I thought I would make you some toast, more our sort.... Oh yes! What
the young lady has brought is very nice, but this will be hotter." The
real Pomona never looked about fifty--she was a goddess, you see!--but
if she had, and had made toast, she must have resembled Ruth Thrale.

Then old Maisie became more vividly alive to her visitor, helped by the
fact that she had been unconscious in her presence. That was human
nature. The establishment of a common sympathy about Lupin, the
tea-purveyor, was social nature. Pomona had called Miss Lupin "the young
lady." This had placed Miss Lupin; she belonged to a superior class, and
her ministrations were a condescension. It was strange indeed that such
trivialities should have a force to span the huge gulf years had dug
between these two, and yet never show a rift in the black cloud of their
fraud-begotten ignorance. They _did_ draw them nearer together, beyond a
doubt; especially that recognition of Miss Lupin's position. Old Maisie
had never felt comfortable with the household, while always oppressed
with gratitude for its benevolences. She had felt that she had expressed
it very imperfectly to her young ladyship, to cause her to say:--"They
will get all you want, I dare say. But how _do_ they behave? That's the
point! Are they giving themselves airs, or being pretty to you?" For
this downright young beauty never minced matters. But naturally old
Maisie had felt that she could do nothing but show gratitude for the
attention of the household, especially as she could not for the life of
her define the sources of her discomfort in her relations with it.

This saddler's widow from Chorlton, with all her village life upon her,
and her utter ignorance of the monstrous world of Maisie's own past
experience, came like a breath