her, was to know why she acted the reason was
half the business; whereas with Mrs. Lowder there
might have been no reason: " why " was the trivial
seasoning-substance, the vanilla or the nutmeg, omit-
table from the nutritive pudding without spoiling it.
Mrs. Lowder's desire was clearly sharp that their
young companions should also prosper together;
and Mrs. Stringham's account of it all to Milly, dur
ing the first days, was that when, at Lancaster Gate,
she was not occupied in telling, as it were, about her,
she was occupied in hearing much of the history of
her hostess's brilliant niece.

They had plenty, on these lines, the two elder
women, to give and to take, and it was even not quite
clear to the pilgrim from Boston that what she
should mainly have arranged for in London was not
a series of thrills for herself. She had a bad con
science, indeed almost a sense of immorality, in hav
ing to recognise that she was, as she said, carried
away. She laughed to Milly when she also said that
she didn't know where it would end; and the princi
pal of her uneasiness was that Mrs. Lowder's life
bristled for her with elements that she was really
having to look at for the first time. They represent
ed, she believed, the world, the world that, as a con
sequence of the cold shoulder turned to it by the
Pilgrim Fathers, had never yet boldly crossed to Bos
ton it would surely have sunk the stoutest Cu-
narder and she couldn't pretend that she faced the
prospect simply because Milly had had a caprice.

[[188]]

p187 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p188w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p189

v?