The general preoccupation and excitement seemed to destroy her link with the household. As soon as the children’s tea was over she felt herself free. A strange tall woman came to stay in the house, trailing about in long jewelled dresses with a slight limp; Miss Tower, Mrs. Corrie called her Jin. But the name did not belong to her. Miriam could not think of any name that would belong to her ... talking to Mrs. Corrie at lunch with amused eyes and expressionless, small fine features of some illness that was going to kill her in eight or ten years, of her friends, talking about her men friends as if they were boys to be cried over. “Why don’t you marry him?” Mrs. Corrie would say of one or another. How happy the man would be, thought Miriam, gazing into the strange eyes and daring her to marry anyone and alter the eyes. Miss Tower spoke to her now and again as if she had known her all her life. One day after lunch she suddenly said, “You ought to smile more often--you’ve got pretty teeth; but you forget about them. Don’t forget about them”; and one evening she came into her room just as she was beginning to undress and stood by the fire and said, “Your evening dresses are all wrong. You should have them cut higher, above the collar-bone--or much lower--don’t forget. Don’t forget, you could be charming.” Mrs. Corrie came in herself the next evening and gave Miriam a full-length cabinet photograph of herself, suddenly. Afterwards she heard her saying to Kate on the landing, “Let the poor thing rest when she can,” and they both went into Kate’s room. 7 Every day as soon as the children’s tea was over she fled to her room. The memory of Mrs. Corrie’s little sketch-book had haunted her for days. She had bought a block and brushes, a small box of paints and a book on painting in water colours. For days she painted, secure in the feeling of Mrs. Corrie and Kate occupied with each other. She filled sheet after sheet with swift efforts to recall Brighton skies--sunset, the red mass of the sun, the profile of the cliffs, the sky clear or full of heavy cloud, the darkness of the afternoon sea streaked by a path of gold, bird-specks, above the cliffs, above the sea. The painting was thick and confused, the objects blurred and ran into each other, the image of each recalled object came close before her eyes, shaking her with its sharp reality, her heart and hand shook as she contemplated it, and her body thrilled as she swept her brushes about. She found herself breathing heavily and deeply, sure each time of registering what she saw, sweeping rapidly on until the filled paper confronted her, a confused mass of shapeless images, leaving her angry and cold. Each day what she had done the day before thrilled her afresh and drove her on, and the time she spent in contemplation and hope became the heart of the days as April wore on. 8