no perceptible features. Her face took no more hold upon one’s attention or memory than a Chinaman’s. I do not remember ever to have looked at her squarely, and I was always curiously surprised when the fact was brought to my attention that such a person existed at all. She was like the new moon: whenever she made her appearance it seemed to me that I had last seen her at least three years back. When, by chance, I encountered her in the house, she melted through a door-way like an alarmed crab in soft sand. She was a woman after my own heart — needless to say, with no chance of getting it — and, in brief, the person of all persons for “Sans Souci.”
It was with something very nearly akin to triumph that I directed Miss Berrith’s attention to her. Miss Berrith “happened to be passing” — that was her euphonious way of explaining her almost daily fit of curiosity — and stopped a moment to watch me unpacking
