But Connie knew very well by this time that Nora was not wholly absorbed in Middle English. Often, as they emerged from the Bodleian to go home to lunch, they would come across Sorell hurrying along the Broad, his master’s gown floating behind him. And he would turn his fine ascetic face towards them, and wave his hand to them from the other side of the street. And Connie would flash a look at Nora,—soft, quick, malicious—of which Nora was well aware. But Connie rarely said a word. She was handling the situation indeed with great discretion, though with an impetuous will. She herself had withdrawn from the Greek lessons, on the plea that she was attending some English history lectures; that she must really find out who fought the battle of Hastings; and was too lazy to do anything else. Sometimes she would linger in the schoolroom till Sorell arrived, and then he would look at her wistfully, when she prepared to depart, as though to say—‘Was this what I bargained for?’ But she always laughed and went. And presently, as she crossed the hall again and heard animated voices in the schoolroom, her brown eyes would show a merry satisfaction. Meanwhile Nora was growing thinner and handsomer day by day. She was shedding awkwardness without any loss of that subacid sincerity that was her charm. Connie, as much as she dared, took her dressing in hand. She was never allowed to give a thing; but Annette’s fingers were quick and clever, and Nora’s Spartan garb was sometimes transformed by them under the orders of a coaxing or audacious Constance. The mere lifting of the load of care had let the young plant shoot, so that many persons passing Ewen Hooper’s second daughter in the street would turn round now to look at her in surprise. Was that really the stout, podgy schoolgirl, who had already, by virtue of her strong personality, made a certain impression in the university town? People had been vaguely sorry for her, or vaguely thought of her as plain but good. Alice, of course, was pretty; Nora had the virtues. And now here she was, bursting into good looks, more positive than her sister’s.