And yet, though she persistently looked away, the face had so impressed her that she still could see it. In her first glimpse it had been photographed on her mind; its pallor was remarkable, the skin had a damp, dead whiteness, as if it had bleached in a cave, curls of thin brown hair clung to the brows; on the boy’s neck was a streak of black where the collar of his coat had rubbed its color. In his thin hands he held a plush cap. And out of his pale face his wan eyes looked and followed her; she could not escape them, and for relief she finally fled to the inner room. "We have made arrangements," said one of the women, "to hold our committee meetings hereafter at Mrs. Spayd’s. She has kindly put her library at our disposal. This place is unbearable!" She flung up a window and let the fresh air pour in. "Yes," sighed another woman, "the air is sickening. It gives me a headache. If the poor could only be taught that cleanliness is akin to godliness!" Elizabeth’s head ached, too; it would be a relief to be delivered out of this atmosphere. But still the face of the young man pursued her. She could not follow the deliberations of the committee; she could think of nothing but that face. Where, she continually asked herself, had she seen it before? She sat by a window, and looked down into the street, preoccupied by the effort to identify it. She gave herself up to the pain of the process, as one does when trying to remember a name. Now and then she caught phrases of the sentences the women began, but seemed never able to finish:--"Oh, I hardly think that--" "As a class, of course--" "Oriental hangings would be best--" "Cheese-cloth looks cheap--" "Of course, flags--" "We could solicit the merchants--" "My husband was saying last night--" But where had she seen that face before? Why should it pursue and worry her? What had she ever done? Finally, after two hours of the mighty effort and patience that are necessary to bring a number of minds to grasp a subject and agree even on the most insignificant detail, two hours in which thoughts hovered and flitted here and there, and could not find expression, when minds held back, and continually balked at the specific, the certain, the definite, and sought refuge from decision in the general and the abstract, the committee exhausted itself, and decided to adjourn. Then, although it had reached no conclusions whatever, the matron who presided smiled and said: "Well, I feel that we’re making progress." "I don’t feel as if we’d done much," some one else said. "And I can not come on Friday." "Do you know, I really haven’t got a single one of my Christmas presents yet." "I have to give sixty-seven! Just think! What a burden it all is!"