How lovely it would be to-day at the end of the day. Fräulein would feel happy then ... or did elderly people fear cancer all the time.... It was a great mistake. You should leave things to Nature.... You were more likely to have things if you thought about them. But Fräulein would think and worry ... alone with herself ... with her great dark eyes and bony forehead and thin pale cheeks ... always alone, and just cancer coming ... I shall be like that one day ... an old teacher and cancer coming. It was silly to forget all about it and see Granny's calceolarias in the sun ... all that had to come to an end.... To forget was like putting off repentance. Those who did not put it off saw when the great waters came, a shining figure coming to them through the flood.... If they did not they were like the man in a night-cap, his mouth hanging open--no teeth--and skinny hands, playing cards on his death-bed. 9 After bed-making, Fräulein settled a mending party at the window-end of the schoolroom table. She sent no emissary but was waiting herself in the schoolroom when they came down. She hovered about putting them into their places and enquiring about the work of each one. She arranged Miriam and the Germans at the saal end of the table for an English lesson. Mademoiselle was not there. Fräulein herself took the head of the table. Once more she enjoined silence--the whole table seemed waiting for Miriam to begin her lesson. The three or four readings they had done during the term alone in the little room had brought them through about a third of the blue-bound volume. Hoarsely whispering, then violently clearing her throat and speaking suddenly in a very loud tone Miriam bade them resume the story. They read and she corrected them in hoarse whispers. No one appeared to be noticing. A steady breeze coming through the open door of the summer-house flowed past them and along the table, but Miriam sat stifling, with beating temples. She had no thoughts. Now and again in correcting a simple word she was not sure that she had given the right English rendering. Behind her distress two impressions went to and fro--Fräulein and the _raccommodage_ party sitting in judgment and the whole roomful waiting for cancer. Very gently at the end of half an hour Fräulein dismissed the Germans to practise. Herr Schraub was coming at eleven. Miriam supposed she was free until then and went upstairs. On the landing she met Mademoiselle coming downstairs with mending. "Bossy coming?" she said feverishly in French; "are you going to the saal?" Mademoiselle stood contemplating her. "I've just been giving an English lesson, oh, Mon Dieu," she proceeded. Mademoiselle still looked gravely and quietly. Miriam was passing on. Mademoiselle turned and said hurriedly in a low voice. "Elsa says you are a fool at lessons." "Oh," smiled Miriam.