rather to one side, and wore on it a look of apology. Her quick
sentences sounded as if she kept them on strings, and wanted to draw
them back as soon as she had let them forth.

"Greta, how can, you do such things? I don't know what your father would
say! I am sure I don't know how to--so extraordinary--"

"Please!" said Harz.

"You must come at once--so very sorry--so awkward!" They were standing
in a ring: Harz with his eyebrows working up and down; the little lady
fidgeting her parasol; Greta, flushed and pouting, her eyes all dewy,
twisting an end of fair hair round her finger.

"Oh, look!" The coffee had boiled over. Little brown streams trickled
spluttering from the pan; the dog, with ears laid back and tail tucked
in, went scurrying round the room. A feeling of fellowship fell on them
at once.

"Along the wall is our favourite walk, and Scruff--so awkward, so
unfortunate--we did not think any one lived here--the shutters are
cracked, the paint is peeling off so dreadfully. Have you been long in
Botzen? Two months? Fancy! You are not English? You are Tyrolese?
But you speak English so well--there for seven years? Really? So
fortunate!--It is Greta's day for English."

Miss Naylor's eyes darted bewildered glances at the roof where the
crossing of the beams made such deep shadows; at the litter of brushes,
tools, knives, and colours on a table made out of packing-cases; at the
big window, innocent of glass, and flush with the floor, whence dangled