BACKWATER

CHAPTER I

1

A swarthy turbaned face shone at Miriamfrom a tapestry screen standing between herand the ferns rising from a basket framework in thebow of the window. Consulting it at intervals asthe afternoon wore on, she found that it madevery light of the quiet propositions that werebeing elaborated within hearing of her inattentiveears. Looking beyond it she could catch glimpsesbetween the crowded fernery, when a tram wasnot jingling by, of a close-set palisade just acrossthe roadway and beyond the palisade of a greenlevel ending at a row of Spanish poplars. Thetrams seemed very near and noisy. When theypassed by the window, the speakers had to raisetheir voices. Otherwise the little drawing-roomwas very quiet, with a strange old-fashionedquietness. It was full of old things, like theGobelin screen, and old thoughts like the thoughtsof the ladies who were sitting and talking there.She and her mother had seemed quite modern,fussy, worldly people when they had first comeinto the room. From the moment the threeladies had come in and begun talking to hermother, the things in the room, and the view ofthe distant row of poplars had grown more andmore peaceful, and now at the end of an hour shefelt that she, and to some extent Mrs. Hendersontoo, belonged to the old-world room with itsquiet green outlook shut in by the poplars. Onlythe trams were disturbing. They came busily by,with their strange jingle-jingle, plock-plock, andmade her inattentive. Why were there so manypeople coming by in trams? Where were theygoing? Why were all the trams painted thathard, dingy blue?

The sisters talked quietly, outlining their needsin smooth gentle voices, in small broken phrases,frequently interrupting and correcting each other.Miriam heard dreamily that they wanted helpwith the lower school, the children from six toeight years of age, in the mornings and afternoons,and in the evenings a general superintendence ofthe four boarders. They kept on saying that thework was very easy and simple; there were nonaughty girls—hardly a single naughty girl—inthe school; there should be no difficult superintendence,no exercise of authority would berequired.

By the time they had reached the statement ofthese modifications Miriam felt that she knewthem quite well. The shortest, who did mostof the talking and who had twinkling eyes andcrooked pince-nez and soft reddish cheeks and alittle red-tipped nose, and whose small coil ofsheeny grey hair was pinned askew on the top ofher head—stray loops standing out at curiousangles—was Miss Jenny, the middle one. Thevery tall one sitting oppos

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