as if to explain and as if also to put it pleas
antly.

"But what on earth can I do for you?"
The girl hesitated, then seemed on the point of
being able to say; but suddenly changed and ex
pressed herself otherwise. " Dear, dear thing
I'm only too happy!"

It brought them closer, but it rather confirmed
Mrs. Stringham's doubt. " Then what's the mat
ter?"

"That's the matter that I can scarcely bear it."

"But what is it you think you haven't got?"

Milly waited another moment; then she found it,
and found for it a dim show of joy. " The power
to resist the bliss of what I have!"

Mrs. Stringham took it in her sense of be
ing " put off " with it, the possible, probable irony
of it and her tenderness renewed itself in the posi
tive grimness of a long murmur. " Whom will
you see? " for it was as if they looked down from
their height at a continent of doctors. " Where
will you first go?"

Milly had for the third time her air of considera
tion; but she came back with it to her plea of some
minutes before. " I ll tell you at supper good
bye till then." And she left the room with a light
ness that testified for her companion to something
that again particularly pleased her in the renewed
promise of motion. The odd passage just conclud
ed, Mrs. Stringham mused as she once more sat

[[147]]

p146 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p147w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p148

v?