was giving a music-lesson. The rest of the girls were gathered in the
large schoolroom under the care of Mademoiselle for Saturday's
_raccommodage_. It was the last hour of the week's work.
Presently there would be a great gonging, the pianos would cease,
Fraulein's voice would sound up through the house "Anziehen zum
Aus-geh-hen!"

There would be the walk, dinner, the Saturday afternoon home-letters to
be written and then, until Monday, holiday, freedom to read and to talk
English and idle. And there was a new arrival in the house. Ulrica
Hesse had come. Miriam had seen her. There had been three large
leather trunks in the hall and a girl with a smooth pure oval of pale
face standing wrapped in dark furs, gazing about her with eyes for which
Miriam had no word, liquid--limpid--great-saucers, no--pools . . . great
round deeps. . . . She had felt about for something to express them as
she went upstairs with her roll of music. Fraulein Pfaff who had seemed
to hover and smile about the girl as if half afraid to speak to her, had
put out a hand for Miriam and said almost deprecatingly, "Ach, mm, dies'
ist unser Ulrica."

The girl's thin fingers had come out of her furs and fastened
convulsively--like cold, throbbing claws on to the breadth of Miriam's
hand.

"Unsere englische Lehrerin--our teacher from England," smiled Fraulein.

"Lehrerin!" breathed the girl. Something flinched behind her great
eyes. The fingers relaxed, and Miriam feeling within her a beginning of
response, had gone upstairs.