Page:Far from the Maddening Girls.djvu/101

 and still more impossible to avoid. I was forced to make an acquaintance with a whole new vocabulary, wherein such mysteries as “bias,” “hemstitching,” “crocking,” and “second raising,” were constantly looming up, clamourous for elucidation. I began to think that I should be obliged to engage an interpreter, and was of a mind to formulate an appeal to Mistress S. T. Rorer.

It is an ill thing to be forced to confess oneself at fault, and yet to this admission was I constrained by the candour which is my most admirable quality. There was something amiss about life at “Sans Souci!” There was a curious stillness in the house, which, to be sure, I had hoped to find, but wherein I was disappointed. There was lacking an element of liveliness, and I said as much to Miss Berrith the next time we met.

“But doesn’t Darius supply that?” she inquired.

“You may be sure it is not the noise of