XIX.
Disappointment.
The birthday of the twins had arrived; but the sun rises late on the twenty-fourth of December, and Dora was up, dressing by candlelight, long before his first beams shone on the sheet of pure white snow which had fallen during the night. It might be supposed that Dora’s thoughts would be on the words of advice which she had heard on the previous night; but though these words had made some impression at the time, it was by no means upon them that the girl’s mind was running when she awoke in the morning. Dora was thinking of her embroidery work—that work of which she had been so proud, that work which had cost her so dear. Nothing that Miss Clare had said dwelt so much on the memory of her niece as the simple observation, “It wants a little more scarlet, I think.”
For on the mantelpiece of the room now occupied by Dora, there chanced to stand a glass bottle, corked and labelled; and by the light of her candle Dora had noticed that “SCARLET INK” was printed upon the label. The sight of that little bottle had roused in the mind of the girl new hopes, and again turned her energies into the channel of work.
“My supply of scarlet silk ran short, and I was not able to get another skein at the shop,” thought Dora. “Aunt is quite right, there is not enough of scarlet mixed with the purple and blue; it is that which spoils the effect of my curtains. I wonder that no one noticed that before! But I have a skein of white silk with me, and why should I not dye it myself with that beautiful scarlet ink? This is a capital idea! The school children do not come till the afternoon; I should have time to dye my silk before breakfast, and after breakfast to work enough scarlet into my pattern to give a brilliant effect to all that part which is most easily seen. How pleased Aunt Theodora will be to find that I have taken her hint, and that I grudge no extra trouble to make my work complete! How very lucky it is that she put that ink into my room!”
Dora actually forgot both her prayers and her Scripture reading on that birthday morning, in her impatience to get down-stairs and quietly remove her inner veil and curtains from the model, before any other member of the family should enter the room where it was kept. With rough hair, and dress only half-buttoned, Dora noiselessly opened her door, and then crept down the staircase, and into the sitting-room in which the Tabernacle stood, covered from the dust by large sheets of silver paper. There was no one in the room except the housemaid, who was employed in opening the shutters to let in the light of morning.