A soft distant rumble of thunder came as she was dressing.... The storm was still going on ... what an extraordinary time of day for thunder ... the excitement was not over ... they were still a besieged party ... all staying at the Bienenkorb together.... How beautiful it sounded rumbling away over the country in the morning. When she had finished struggling with her long thick hair and put the hairpins into the solid coil on the top of her head and tied the stout doubled door-knocker plait at her neck, she put on the rose-madder blouse. The mirror was lower and twice as large as the one in the garret, larger than the one she had shared with Harriett. "How jolly I look," she thought, "jolly and big somehow. Mother would like me this morning. I _am_ German-looking to-day, pinky red and yellow hair. But I haven't got a German expression and I don't smile like a German.... She smiled.... Silly, baby-face! Doll! Never mind. I look jolly. She looked gravely into her eyes.... There's something about my expression." Her face grew wistful. "It isn't vain to like it. It's something. It isn't me. It's something I am, somehow. Oh, _do_ stay," she said, "do be like that always." She sighed and turned away saying in Harriett's voice, "Oo--crumbs! This is no place for _me_." 13 The sky seen from the summer-house was darker still. There were no massed clouds, nothing but a hard even dark copper-grey, and away through the gap the distant country was bright like a little painted scene. On the horizon the hard dark sky shut down. At intervals thunder rumbled evenly, far away. Miriam stood still in the middle of the summer-house floor. It was half-dark; the morning saal lay in a hot sultry twilight. The air in the summer-house was heavy and damp. She stood with her half-closed hands gathered against her. "How perfectly magnificent," she murmured, gazing out through the hard half-darkness to where the brightly coloured world lay in a strip and ended on the hard sky. "Yes ... yes," came a sad low voice at her side. For a second Miriam did not turn. She drank in the quiet "yes, yes," the hard fixed scene seemed to move. Who loved it too, the dark sky and the storm? Then she focussed her companion who was standing a little behind her, and gazed at Fräulein; she hardly saw her, she seemed still to see the outdoor picture. Fräulein made a movement towards her; and then she saw for a moment the strange grave young look in her eyes. Fräulein had looked at her in that moment as an equal. It was as if they had embraced each other. Then Fräulein said sadly, "You like the storm-weather, Miss Henderson." "Yes." Fräulein sighed, looking out across the country. "We are in the hollow of His hand," she murmured. "Come to your breakfast, my child," she chided, smiling. 14