Mrs. Bailey came up _herself_ to do Miriam's room on Sunday morning. Miriam wondered as she came archly in after a brisk tap on the door how she knew that her visit caused dismay. The visit of the little maid did not break into anything. It only meant standing for a minute or so by the window longing for the snuffling and shuffling to be over. But if Mrs. Bailey were coming up every Sunday morning.... She stood at Mrs. Bailey's disposal sheepishly smiling, in the middle of the room.--You didn't expect to see _me_, young lady--Miriam broadened her smile.--I want to talk to you--They stood confronted in the room just as they had done the first time Mrs. Bailey had been there with her and they had settled about the rent. Only that then the room had seemed large and real and at once inhabited, the crown of the large house and the reality of all the unknown rooms. Now it seemed to be at a disadvantage, one of Mrs. Bailey's unconsidered attics, apart from the life that was beginning to flow all round her downstairs. Something in Mrs. Bailey's face when she said I was wondering if you would give Sissie a few French lessons spoke the energy of the new feeling and thought. Miriam was astounded. She called up a vision of Sissie's pale steady grey-blue eyes, her characterless hair, her thickset swiftly ambling little figure. She was the kind of girl who after good schooling could spend a year in France and come back unable to speak French. But if Mrs. Bailey wished it she would have to learn from somebody.... So she conspired with an easy contemptuous conscience and they stood murmuring over the plan, Mrs. Bailey producing one by one, fearfully, in a low motherly encouraging tone the things she had arranged beforehand in her own mind. Before she went she bustled to the window and tweaked the ends of the little Madras muslin curtains. Why don't you go down to the drawn-room for a while--she asked tweaking and flicking.--You'll have it all to yourself. Mr. Elsing's gone out. I should go down if I was you and get a warm up.--Miriam thanked her and promised to go and wondered whether the Norwegian's name was Helsing or Elsen. When Mrs. Bailey had gone she walked busily about her affronted room. It must be Helsing. A man named Elsen would be shorter and stouter and kindly. Of course she would not go down to the drawing-room. She ransacked her Saratoga trunk and found a Havet and a phrase book. She would teach Sissie the rules of French pronunciation and two or three phrases every day and make some sort of beginning of syntax with Havet. There would be no difficulty in filling up the quarter of an hour. But it would be teaching in the bad cruel old-fashioned way. To begin at once with Piccola or Le Roi des Montagnes and talk to her in the character of a Frenchman wanting to become a boarder would be the best.... But Sissie would not grasp that slow way. It would be too long before she began to see that she was learning anything ...