of her friend as plain, as ugly even, in a case of
especially dense insistence; but as, in appearance,
so " awfully full of things." This was her own
way of describing a face that, thanks, doubtless, to
rather too much forehead, too much nose and too
much mouth, together with too little mere conven
tional colour and conventional line, was expressive,
irregular, exquisite, both for speech and for silence.
When Milly smiled it was a public event when she
didn't it was a chapter of history. They had
stopped, on the Briinig, for luncheon, and there
had come up for them under the charm of the place
the question of a longer stay.

Mrs. Stringham was now on the ground of
thrilled recognitions, small sharp echoes of a past
which she kept in a well-thumbed case, but which,
on pressure of a spring and exposure to the air,
still showed itself ticking as hard as an honest old
watch. The embalmed " Europe " of her younger
time had partly stood for three years of Switzerland,
a term of continuous school at Vevey, with rewards
of merit in the form of silver medals tied by blue
ribbons and mild mountain-passes attacked with
alpenstocks. It was the good girls who, in the holi
days, were taken highest, and our friend could now
judge, from what she supposed her familiarity with
the minor peaks, that she had been one of the best.
These reminiscences, sacred to-day because pre
pared in the hushed chambers of the past, had been
part of the general train laid for the pair of sisters,

[[132]]

p131 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p132w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p133

v?