under the control of her muscles, so that her words escaped not properly formed.  Generally she was rather languid in her attitudes, sitting in her chair in any way but the proper way, and often giving her father cause of correction on this point as she grew up, inasmuch as he properly objected that when she came to be thirteen or fourteen she ought to show that she duly appreciated the reasons why her frocks were lengthened.  Her room was never in order.  Nothing was ever hung up; nothing was put in its place.  Shoes were here and there—­one might be under the dressing-table and the other under the bed; but with, an odd inconsistency she was always personally particularly clean, and although bathing was then unknown in Cowfold, she had a tub, and used it too with constant soap and water.  With her lessons she did not succeed, more particularly with arithmetic, which she abhorred.  Sometimes they were done, sometimes left undone, but she never failed in history.  Her voice was a contralto of most remarkable power, strong enough to fill a cathedral, but altogether undisciplined.  She was fond of music, and the organist at the church offered to teach her with his own daughters, if she would sing with them on Sundays; but she could not get through the drudgery of the exercises, and advanced only so far as to be able to take her proper part in a hymn.  Here, however, she was almost useless, from incapability of proper subordination, the sopranos, tenors, and basses being well nigh drowned.

She was fond of live creatures, and had cats, canaries, white mice, and rabbits, which she treated with great tenderness; but they were never kept clean, and caused much annoyance to her family.  She was also truthful; but what distinguished her most was a certain originality in her criticisms on Cowfold men, women, and events, a certain rectification which she always gave to the conventional mode of regarding them.  There was a bit of sandstone rock near the town, by the side of the road, which from time immemorial had been called the Old Man’s Nose.  It was something like a nose when seen at a certain angle, but why it should have been described as the nose of an old man rather than that of a young man, no mortal could have explained.  Nevertheless all Cowfold had for ages said it was the Old Man’s Nose; and when strangers came it was pointed out with a “don’t you see, isn’t it hooked, just like a nose, and that is where his spectacles might lie.”  But Miriam made a small revolution in Cowfold.  She never would admit the likeness to a nose, but with a pleasant humour observed that it was like a mug upside down—­“mug,” it must be explained, meaning not only a drinking utensil, but in very vulgar language a human face.  Cowfold gradually heard of Miriam’s joke, and instantly saw that the rock was really like a mug.  There was the upper part, there was the handle; the resemblance to the nose disappeared, and what was most strange, could no more be imagined.  Cowfold now repeated to visitors this little bit of not very brilliant smartness, elaborating it heavily at times, till it would have become rather a weariness to the flesh, if it had not been a peculiarity of Cowfold, that it was never tired of saying the same thing over and over again, and laughing at it perpetually.