"And so I have, dear, dearest mother; but I will live alone, for all that. Disgrace has fallen upon me, but I will not ask others to bear my burden. Was it not well Dora's marriage took place last month? My position cannot affect hers now."
"Oh Phyllis! do not talk of disgrace. What disgrace can attach to you, my poor innocent child?"
"I cannot lie here any longer," I say, abruptly, getting off the bed; "I shall go mad, if I stay still and think. And my hair,"—fretfully—"it has all come down; it must be settled again. Oh, no; I cannot have Martha; she would look doleful and sympathetic, as if she knew everything, and I should feel inclined to kill her."
"Let me do it, darling. Your arms are tired," says mother, meekly, and proceeds to shake out and comb with softest touch the heavy masses of hair that only yesterday I gloried in. Even this morning, when it lay all about my shoulders, how happy I was!
"Do you know, mother," I say, drearily, "it seems to me now as though between me and this morning a whole century had rolled?"
"Phyllis," says mamma, earnestly, "I don't like your manner. I don't like the way you are taking all this. A little while ago your grief was vehement, but natural; now there is an indifference about you that frightens me. You will be ill, darling, if you don't give way a little."
"Ill? with a chance of dying you mean? Why, that would be famous! But don't fear, mother: no such good fortune is in store for me. I shall probably outlive every one of you." I laugh a little. "How nicely you use the brush! you do not drag a single hair. And it is nearly seven months now since last you brushed my hair; and I was then almost a child, was not I? And we have never thought, you and I, such bad luck was in store for the poor little scapegrace of the family. Yes, roll it back like that. Oh! did you ever see so miserable a face? I hate it," making a faint, grimace at my own image in the glass. "How white it is!"
"Too white!"
"Yes, but not so white as hers; and her eyes, so large and black. I have read that Italian women are revengeful. I think if she had had a knife then she would have killed me."
"Phyllis, you are overwrought. Darling, do let me put you into bed again, and try to swallow some of this composing draught. Or see, this comfortable couch—will you lie here?" coaxingly.