e woman in Oxford once,' said Miss Buchanan.
'She was studying there--she had come from a college in America. She was
so nice and clever, and charming, too; quaint and full of flavour. She
was going to teach in a college when she went back. She was very poor,
quite different from the others. Her father, she told me, kept a shop,
but didn't get on at all; and her brother, to whom she was devoted, sold
harmoniums. It was just like an American novel. Wayman was her
name--Miss Carrie Wayman; perhaps you know her. I forget the name of the
town she came from, but it was somewhere in the western part of
America.'

No, Althea said, she did not know Miss Wayman, and she felt some little
severity for the confusion that Miss Buchanan's remarks indicated. With
greater emphasis than before, she said that she did not know the West at
all.

'It must be rather nice--plains and cowboys and Rocky Mountains,' Miss
Buchanan said. 'I've a cousin on a ranch in Dakota, and I've often
thought I'd like to go out there for a season; he says the riding is
wonderful, and the scenery and flowers. Oh, my wretched head; it feels
as if it were stuffed with incandescent cotton-wool.'

'You must remember to keep your arms under the covers,' said Althea, as
Miss Buchanan lifted her hands and pressed them to her brows. 'And let
me plait your hair for you; it must be so hot and uncomfortable.'

And now again, looking up at her while the friendly office was
performed, Miss Buchanan said, 'How kind you are! too kind for words. I
can't think what I should have done without you.'

CHAPTER IV.

It became easy after this for Althea to carry into effect all her
beneficent wishes. The friends who had taken Miss Buchanan to the
Riviera had gone on to London, leaving her alone in Paris for a week's
shopping, and there was no one else to look after her. She brought her
fruit and flowers and sat with her in all her spare moments. The feeling
of anxiety that had oppressed her on the evening of gloom when she had
first seen her was transformed into a soft and delightful perturbation.
As the unknown lady in black Miss Buchanan had indeed charmed as well as
oppressed her, and the charm grew while the oppression, though it still
hovered, was felt more as a sense of alluring mystery. She had never in
her life met any one in the least like Miss Buchanan. She was at once so
open and so impenetrable. She replied to all questions with complete
unreserve, but she