Page:What Maisie Knew (Chicago & New York, Herbert S. Stone & Co., 1897).djvu/320

306 indescribable: he had put it in her power to have "changes," as she said, of the most intimate order, adapted to climates and occasions so various as to foreshadow in themselves the stages of a vast itinerary. Cheap weeks would of course be in their place after so much money spent on a governess; sums not grudged, however, by this lady's pupil even on her feeling her own appearance give rise, through the straighteners, to an attention perceptibly mystified. Sir Claude, in truth, had had less time to devote to it than to Mrs. Wix's; and moreover she would rather be in her own shoes than in her friend's creaking new ones in the event of an encounter with Mrs. Beale. Maisie was too lost in the idea of Mrs. Beale's judgment of so much newness to pass any judgment herself. Besides, after much luncheon and many endearments, the question took quite another turn, to say nothing of the pleasure of the child's quick view that there were other eyes than Susan Ash's to open to what she could show. She could n't show much, alas, till it stopped raining, which it declined to do that day; but this had only the effect of leaving more time for Mrs. Wix's own demonstration. It came as they sat in the