and rather idly, that, but for interruptions, the
young Englishman might have become a better ac
quaintance. His being an acquaintance at all was
one of the signs that in the first days had helped to
place Milly, as a young person with the world be
fore her, for sympathy and wonder. Isolated, un-
mothered, unguarded, but with her other strong
marks, her big house, her big fortune, her big free
dom, she had lately begun to " receive," for all her
few years, as an older woman might have done
as was done, precisely, by princesses who had pub
lic considerations to observe and who came of age
very early.!_If it was thus distinct to Mrs. String-
ham then that Mr. Densher had gone off some
where else in connection with his errand before her
visit to New York, it had been also not undiscover-
able that he had come back for a day or two later on,
that is after her own second excursion that he had
in fine reappeared on a single occasion on his way
to the West: his way from Washington as she be
lieved, though he was out of sight at the time of her
joining her friend for their departure. It had not
occurred to her before to exaggerate it had not
occurred to her that she could; but she seemed to
become aware to-night that there had been just
enough in this relation to meet, to provoke, the
free conception of a little more.

She presently put it that, at any rate, promise or
no promise, Milly would, at a pinch, be able, in
London, to act on his permission to make him a

[[153]]

p152 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p153w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p154

v?