her ask for Brodchen that she was Scotch. She sat slightly askew and
ate eagerly, stooping over her plate with smiling mouth and downcast
heavily-freckled face. Unless spoken to she did not speak, but she
laughed often, a harsh involuntary laugh immediately followed by a
drowning flush. When she was not flushed her eyelashes shone bright
black against the unstained white above her cheek-bones. She had coarse
fuzzy red-brown hair.

Miriam decided that she was negligible.

Next to Judy were the Martins. They were as English as they could be.
She felt she must have noticed them a good deal at breakfast and
dinner-time without knowing it. Her eyes after one glance at the
claret-coloured merino dresses with hard white collars and cuffs, came
back to her plate as from a familiar picture. She still saw them
sitting very upright, side by side, with the front strands of their hair
strained smoothly back, tied just on the crest of the head with brown
ribbon and going down in "rats'-tails" to join the rest of their hair
which hung straight and flat half-way down their backs. The elder was
dark with thick shoulders and heavy features. Her large expressionless
rich brown eyes flashed slowly and reflected the light. They gave
Miriam a slight feeling of nausea. She felt she knew what her hands
were like without looking at them. The younger was thin and pale and
slightly hollow-cheeked. She had pale eyes, cold, like a fish, thought
Miriam. They both had deep hollow voices.

When she glanced again they were watching the Australian with their four
strange eyes and laughing German phrases at her, "Go on, Gertrude!" "Are
you _sure,_ Gertrude?" "How do you _know!_"