The ladies from Bross, more and more confused, grew more and more reticent, when suddenly, out of a simple remark of Miss Cameron's about missing in the train the hot-water cans they gave you "to your feet" in Scotland, reticence descended upon Miss Murchison also.

She sat in an odd silence, looking at Miss Cameron, absorbed apparently in the need of looking at her, finding nothing to say, her flow of pleasant inquiry dried up, and all her soul at work, instead, to perceive the woman.

Mrs Kilbannon was beginning to think better of her--it was so much more natural to be a little backward with strangers--when the moment passed.

Their visitor drew herself out of it with almost a perceptible effort, and seemed to glance consideringly at them in their aloofness, their incommunicativeness, their plain odds with her.

I don't know what she expected; but we may assume that she was there simply to offer herself up, and the impulse of sacrifice seldom considers whether or not it may be understood.