"Begging your pardon, Miss Vaughan," she said, "but I never saw a young lady so changed. I used to feel quite grieved when you were so careless about your dress."
"I will try not to grieve you again," said the young girl, laughingly.
"You must not wear either jewels or ribbons with this dress," observed Pincott. "There must be nothing but a simple cluster of green leaves."
"It shall be just as you like," observed Miss Vaughan.
But the maid's taste was correct—nothing more simply elegant or effective could have been devised than the dress of white lace and the cluster of green leaves on the fair hair. Hyacinth hardly remembered how the time passed until he came. She heard his footsteps—heard his voice; and her heart beat, her face flushed, her whole soul seemed to go out to meet him.
"Hyacinth," he cried, clasping her hand, "this day seemed to me as long as a century."
Lady Vaughan was sitting alone in her favorite arm-chair near the open window. Adrian went up to her, leading Hyacinth by the hand.
"Dearest Lady Vaughan," he said, "can you guess what I have to tell you?"
The fair old face beamed with smiles.
"Is it what I have expected, Adrian?" she asked. "Does my little Hyacinth love you?"