tent so to leave it; unless indeed she had said, more
familiarly, that Mildred was the biggest impression
of her life. (TRat was at all events the biggest ac
count of her, and none but a big, clearly, would do.
Her situation, as such things were called, was on
the grand scale; but it still was not that. It was
her nature, once for all a nature that reminded
Mrs. Stringham of the term always used in the news
papers about the great new steamers, the inordi
nate number of " feet of water" they drew; so
that if, in your little boat, you had chosen to hover
and approach, you had but yourself to thank, when
once motion was started, for the way the draught
pulled you. Milly drew the feet of water, and odd
though it might seem that a lonely girl, who was
not robust and who hated sound and show, should
stir the stream like a leviathan, her companion
floated off with the sense of rocking violently at
her side. More than prepared, however, for that
excitement, Mrs. Stringham mainly failed of ease
in respect to her own consistency. To attach her
self for an indefinite time seemed a roundabout
way of holding her hands off. If she wished to be
sure of neither touching nor smutching, the
straighter plan would doubtless have been not to
keep her friend within reach. This in fact she fully
recognised, and with it the degree to which she
desired that the girl should lead her life, a life cer
tain to be so much finer than that of anybody else.
The difficulty, however, by good fortune, cleared

[[126]]

p125 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p126w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p127

v?