and, once she was in the benignant halls, her faith
knew itself justified. It was the air she wanted and
the world she would now exclusively choose; the
quiet chambers, nobly overwhelming, rich but slight
ly veiled, opened out round her and made her pres
ently say " If I could lose myself here! " There
were people, people in plenty, but, admirably, no per
sonal question. It was immense, outside, the per
sonal question; but she had blissfully left it outside,
and the nearest it came, for a quarter of an hour,
to glimmering again into sight was when she
watched for a little one of the more earnest of the
lady-copyists. Two or three in particular, specta
cled, aproned, absorbed, engaged her sympathy to
an absurd extent, seemed to show her for the time
the right way to live. She should have been a lady-
copyist it met so the case. The case was the case
of escape, of living under water, of being at once
impersonal and firm. There it was before one
one had only to stick and stick.

Milly yielded to this charm till she was almost
ashamed; she watched the lady-copyists till she
found herself wondering what would be thought by
others of a young woman, of adequate aspect, who
should appear to regard them as the pride of the
place. She would have liked to talk to them, to get,
as it figured to her, into their lives, and was deterred
but by the fact that she didn't quite see herself as
purchasing imitations and yet feared she might ex
cite the expectation of purchase. She really knew

[[314]]

p313 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p314w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p315

v?