Ida bore the burning bravely, but when the first faint light appeared she sat up in bed, pressing her hands to her smarting cheeks.
"If the freckles are gone, and my skin is fair, I won't say a word about this burning," she said. "But how," she continued, "can my face look even half-way decent, when it is smarting so furiously?"
At last, she could bear it no longer, and springing out of bed, she ran to the dresser, and gasped as she looked at her reflection. Even in the dim light of the dawn of a cloudy day, she saw that her cheeks, her forehead, her chin, were all very red.
Were they spotty as well?
"O dear! If it was only light enough for me to really see!" she whispered.
She looked at the tiny clock. At that early hour no one was stirring at Glenmore.
No one would see her if she went down to the door, and it would be lighter there. A gable shaded the window, and made her room less light.
Thrusting her tangled locks up under the elastic of her muslin cap, and throwing on a loose sack, she snatched the hand-mirror from her dresser, and softly yet swiftly went out into the hall and down the stairs.
She paused in the lower hall, there thinking that she heard some one coming, she rushed out on the piazza, down the steps, and across the lawn to an open space where nothing could obscure the light. Already it was growing lighter, and she lifted the hand-mirror. A look of horror swept over her little face.
"Oh, what a fright!" she cried, as she stood staring at the reflection.