unimaginative, imbued with a shrinking dislike of any
exaggerated display of emotion; in some ways amazingly
broad-minded, in others curiously limited in
their outlook on life. Such women, as a rule, present
few points of interest to students of human nature,
for they are almost invariably true to type, their
virtues and their defects being cast in the same
moulds.

But Mrs. Otway was much more original and more
impulsive, thus far less "groovy," than the people
among whom her lot was cast. There were even
censorious folk in Witanbury who called her eccentric.
She was generous-hearted, easily moved to enthusiasm,
tenacious of her opinions and prejudices. She
had remained young of heart, and her fair, curling
hair, her slight, active figure, and delicately-tinted
skin, gave her sometimes an almost girlish look. Those
who met her for the first time were always surprised
to find that Mrs. Otway had a grown-up daughter.

As a girl she had spent two very happy years in
Germany, at Weimar, and she had kept from those far-
off days a very warm and affectionate feeling towards
the Fatherland, as also a rather exceptionally good
knowledge both of the German language and of old-
fashioned German literature. Then had come a
short engagement, followed by five years of placid,
happy marriage with a minor canon of Witanbury
Cathedral. And then, at the end of those five years,
which had slipped by so easily and so quickly, she
had found herself alone, with one little daughter,
and woefully restricted means. It had seemed, and
indeed it had been, a godsend to come across, in
Anna Bauer, a German widow who, for a miraculously

[[15]]

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v?