"Are you ill, Hyacinth?" asked Lady Vaughan at last. "You do not appear to be paying the least attention to what you are doing."
The girl's beautiful face flushed crimson.
"I do not feel quite myself," she replied.
Lady Vaughan was not well pleased with the answer. Ill-health or nervousness in young people was, as she said, quite unendurable—she had no sympathy with either. She looked very sternly at the sweet crimsoned face.
"You do not have enough to do, Hyacinth," she said gravely; "I must find more employment for you. Miss Pinnock called the other day about the clothing club; you had better write and offer your services."
"As though life was not dreary enough," thought the girl, "without having to sew endless seams by the hour!"
Then, with a sudden thrill of joy, she remembered that her freedom was coming. After this one day there would be no more gloom, no more tedious hours, no more wearisome lectures, no more dull monotony; after this one day all was to be sunshine, beauty, and warmth. How the day passed she never knew—it was like a long dream to her. Yet something like fear took possession of her when Lady Vaughan said:
"It is growing late, Hyacinth; it is past nine."
She went up to her and kissed the stern old face.
"Good-night," she said simply with her lips, and in her heart she added "good-by."