carriage of her arms and the occasional freedom of
her slang.

When Milly had settled that the extent of her
goodwill itself made her shy, she had found for the
moment quite a sufficient key, and they were by that
time thoroughly afloat together. This might well
have been the happiest hour they were to know, at
tacking in friendly independence their great London
the London of shops and streets and suburbs oddly
interesting to Milly, as well as of museums, monu
ments, " sights " oddly unfamiliar to Kate, while
their elders pursued a separate course, both rejoicing
in their intimacy and each thinking the other's young
woman a great acquisition for her own. Milly ex
pressed to Susan Shepherd more than once that Kate
had some secret, some smothered trouble, besides all
the rest of her history; and that if she had so good-
naturedly helped Mrs. Lowder to meet them this was
exactly to create a diversion, to give herself some
thing else to think about. But on the case thus pos
tulated our young American had as yet had no light:
she only felt that when the light should come it
would greatly deepen the colour; and she liked to
think she was prepared for anything. What she
already knew, moreover, was full to her vision, of
English, of eccentric, of Thackerayan character,
Kate Croy having gradually become not a little ex
plicit on the subject of her situation, her past, her
present, her general predicament, her small success,
up to the present hour, in contenting at the same time

[[191]]

p190 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p191w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p192

v?