the background towered a gaunt mountain, pale with snow.

"It is a nice style, isn't it?" shouted Mrs. Stubbs; and Alice had just
screamed "Sweetly" when the roaring of the Primus stove died down, fizzled
out, ceased, and she said "Pretty" in a silence that was frightening.

"Draw up your chair, my dear," said Mrs. Stubbs, beginning to pour out.
"Yes," she said thoughtfully, as she handed the tea, "but I don't care
about the size. I'm having an enlargemint. All very well for Christmas
cards, but I never was the one for small photers myself. You get no
comfort out of them. To say the truth, I find them dis'eartening."

Alice quite saw what she meant.

"Size," said Mrs. Stubbs. "Give me size. That was what my poor dear
husband was always saying. He couldn't stand anything small. Gave him the
creeps. And, strange as it may seem, my dear"--here Mrs. Stubbs creaked
and seemed to expand herself at the memory--"it was dropsy that carried him
off at the larst. Many's the time they drawn one and a half pints from 'im
at the 'ospital...It seemed like a judgmint."

Alice burned to know exactly what it was that was drawn from him. She
ventured, "I suppose it was water."

But Mrs. Stubbs fixed Alice with her eyes and replied meaningly, "It was
liquid, my dear."

Liquid! Alice jumped away from the word like a cat and came back to it,
nosing and wary.