"Books!" she responded in a low tone, and flushed as if she had given
Harriett an affectionate hug. "My rotten books. . . ." She would come
back, and read all her books more carefully. She had packed some. She
could not remember which and why.

"Binks," she said, and it was quite easy for them to crowd together at
the little dressing-table. Harriett was standing in her little faded
red moirette petticoat and a blue flannelette dressing-jacket brushing
her wiry hair. Miriam reflected that she need no longer hate her for
the set of her clothes round her hips. She caught sight of her own
faded jersey and stiff, shapeless black petticoat in the mirror.
Harriett's "Hinde's" lay on the dressing-table, her own still lifted the
skin of her forehead in suffused puckerings against the shank of each
pin.

Unperceived, she eyed the tiny stiff plait of hair which stuck out
almost horizontally from the nape of Harriett's neck, and watched her
combing out the tightly-curled fringe standing stubbily out along her
forehead and extending like a thickset hedge midway across the crown of
her head, where it stopped abruptly against the sleekly-brushed longer
strands which strained over her poll and disappeared into the plait.

"Your old wool'll be just right in Germany," remarked Harriett.

"Mm."

"You ought to do it in basket plaits like Sarah."

"I wish I could. I can't think how she does it."