Page:What Maisie Knew (Chicago & New York, Herbert S. Stone & Co., 1897).djvu/234

220 "He never went—the hound!"

That, according to Sir Claude, had been also what her mother had not done, and Maisie could only have a sense of something that in a maturer mind would be called the way history repeats itself. "Who is she?" she asked again.

Mrs. Beale, fixed to the spot, seemed lost in the vision of an opportunity missed. "If he had only seen me!"—it came from between her teeth. "She's a bran-new one. But he must have been with her since Tuesday."

Maisie took it in. "She's almost black," she then observed.

"They're always hideous," said Mrs. Beale.

This was a remark on which the child had again to reflect. "Oh, not his wives!" she remonstrantly exclaimed. The words at another moment would probably have set her friend off, but Mrs. Beale was now too intent in seeing what became of the others. "Did you ever in your life see such a feather?" Maisie presently continued.

This decoration appeared to have paused at some distance, and in spite of intervening groups they could both look at it. "Oh,