Page:Triangles of life, and other stories.djvu/68

 who got frightened and "run" before they get their second wind. During the awful heat wave of '96 hundreds came no further than the harbour. In fact, all who could do it, went back by the same boat, or never left it, and went to other places. But Billy came further than that, I believe.

I would never dream of trying to make a "character" of Lizzie Higgins. Had she been a character, nothing in particular might have happened—certainly nothing in particular would have been known to have happened. "Nothing in particular." That was her character, and facial expression, if she had one at all; that was the complexion of every case she was connected with—except the last. And that is nothing in particular now, either to her or the village. Except, perhaps, to poor old Higgins with his bend.

Lizzie was "above medium height," which is commonplace in itself; had the characterless English apple bloom, which dulls and reddens and withers and cracks, but never dies out, and the ingratiating smile, not for men, but for any woman, a rung above her in life—a little classier.

When anything was to be "got up" in a hurry for Charlton it was slipped through the gate after dusk, per servant, to Mrs. Higgins' cottage, with impressive low-voiced instructions—like a mystic rite connected with a better class birth or funeral. Mrs.Higgins' front room—the suite had gone—I'll tell about that later on—was an atmosphere of warmth on cold nights, or rather a punctuation in an atmosphere of