pression.

Alicia leaned forward, her elbow on the arm of her chair, her chin
tucked into her palm, and looked at it. The elbow bent itself in light
blue muslin of extreme elegance, trimmed with lace. The colour found a
wistful echo in the eyes that regarded Miss Howe, who was accustomed to
the look, and met it with impenetrable commonplace, being made impatient
by nothing in this world so much as by futility, however charming.

"Just now," Alicia said, "the shadows under your eyes are brushed too
deep."

"I don't believe I sleep well in a dormitory."

"Horrible! All the little comforts of life--don't you miss them?"

"I never had them, my dear--I never had them. Life has never given
me very many luxuries--I don't miss them. An occasional hour to one's
self--and that we get even at the Institution. The conventions are
strictly conserved, believe me."

"One imagines that kind of place is always clean."

"When I have time I think of Number Three, Lal Behari's Lane, and
believe myself in Paradise. The repose is there, the angels also--dear
commanding things--and a perpetual incense of cheap soap. And there is
some good in sleeping in a row. It reminds one that after all one is
very like other women."

"It wouldn't convince me if I were you. And how did the sisters receive
you--with the harp and the psaltery?"

"That was rather," said Hilda gravely, "what I expected. On the
contrary. They snubbed me--they really did. There were two of them. I
said, 'Reverend ladies, please be a little kind. Convents are strange
to me; I shall probably commit horrible sins without knowing it. Give me
your absolution in advance--at least your blessing.'"

"Hilda, you didn't!"

"It is delightful to observe the Mother Abbess, or whatever she
is, disguising the fact that she takes any interest in me. Such
diplomacy--funny old thing."

"They must be devoured with curiosity!"

"Well, they ask no questions. One sees an everlasting finger on the lip.
It's a little boring. One feels inclined to speak up and say, 'Mesdames,
entendez--it isn't so bad as you think.' But then their fingers would go
into their ears."

"And the rules, Hilda? I can't imagine you, somehow, under rules."

"I am attached to the rules; I think about them all day long. They make
the thing simple and--possible. It is a little like living for the first
time in a house all right angles after--after a lifelong voyage in a
small boat."

"Isn't the house rather em