helmsman (the man at the wheel) guiding its course incongruously from
the prow. This phenomenon was repeated every three minutes, and the
supply of eagerly-moving women in cloaks, bearing reticules and bundles,
renewed itself in the most liberal manner. On the other side of the
grave-yard was a row of small red brick houses, showing a series of
homely, domestic-looking backs; at the end opposite the hotel a tall
wooden church-spire, painted white, rose high into the vagueness of
the snow-flakes. The lady at the window looked at it for some time; for
reasons of her own she thought it the ugliest thing she had ever seen.
She hated it, she despised it; it threw her into a state of irritation
that was quite out of proportion to any sensible motive. She had never
known herself to care so much about church-spires.

She was not pretty; but even when it expressed perplexed irritation her
face was most interesting and agreeable. Neither was she in her
first youth; yet, though slender, with a great deal of extremely
well-fashioned roundness of contour--a suggestion both of maturity and
flexibility--she carried her three and thirty years as a light-wristed
Hebe might have carried a brimming wine-cup. Her complexion was
fatigued, as the French say; her mouth was large, her lips too full, her
teeth uneven, her chin rather commonly modeled; she had a thick nose,
and when she smiled--she was constantly smiling--the lines beside it
rose too high, toward her eyes. But these eyes were charming: gray
in color, brilliant, quickly glancing, gently resting, full of
intelligence. Her forehead was very low--it was her only handsome
feature; and she had a great abundance of crisp dark hair, finely
frizzled, which was always braided in a manner that suggested some
Southern or Eastern, some remotely foreign, woman. She had a large
collection of ear-rings, and wore them in alternation; and they seemed
to give a point to her Oriental or exotic aspect. A compliment had once