have been a handsome woman. And he, Levisohn, was clever enough to see
his way to Court favour. The Grand Duke--"

"I don't think I care to hear about the Levisohns," said Priscilla,
sitting up suddenly and speaking with great distinctness. "Gossip is a
thing I detest. None shall be talked in my presence."

"Hoity-toity," said the astonished mother; and it will easily be
believed that no one had ever said hoity-toity to Priscilla before.

She turned scarlet under her veil. For a moment she sat with flashing
eyes, and the hand lying in her lap twitched convulsively. Is it
possible she was thinking of giving the comfortable mother that
admonition which the policeman had so narrowly escaped? I know not
what would have happened if the merry goddess, seeing things rushing
to this dreadful climax, had not stopped the train in the nick of time
at a wayside station and caused a breathless lady, pushing parcels
before her, to clamber in. The mother's surprised stare was of
necessity diverted to the new-comer. A parcel thrust into Priscilla's
hands brought her back of necessity to her senses.

"_Danke, Danke_," cried the breathless lady, though no help had been
offered; and hoisting herself in she wished both her fellow-passengers
a boisterous good evening. The lady, evidently an able person,
arranged her parcels swiftly and neatly in the racks, pulled up the
windows, slammed the ventilators, stripped off her cloak, flung back
her veil, and sitting down with a sigh of vast depth and length stared
steadily for five minutes without wavering at the other two. At the
end of that time she and the mother began, as with a common impulse,
to talk. And at the end of five minutes more they had told each other