And the morning dawned and they drew up at the corner of a common to give the tired horses some refreshment, and prepare a hasty breakfast for those who had been up all night.
No notice was taken of Lizzie. She was allowed to wander about among the dogs, horses, and children; but she knew she was being watched by more than one pair of deep dark eyes, and that it would be useless for her to try to escape even if she knew her road home again.
No; she could not escape in these ragged garments. She must wait and watch, and try to get some of her own clothes back again. Ah! What a fool she had been to give these up so readily. What would she not have given to have the last few days of her life over again? She wrung her hands in anguish as she walked up and down the common and thought of it all.
They did not make a long halt at this place. Only long enough to refresh the tired beasts, and the men who had been driving them all night, and then they were on the road again; for they were to reach the race-course by ten o'clock, and they still had several miles to travel. If Lizzie had cherished any lingering hope that the words she had heard in the night were not true in actual fact, she was quickly undeceived; for just before they started on their journey again she was summoned to the parlour van, where she found Mrs. Stanley busily sewing at the old pink tarlatan dress previously worn by Tottie, but which the woman now proceeded to try on her.
"Didn't I tell you that you'd be wearing a smart frock soon?" she said with a grim smile as she proceeded to fasten the soiled tumbled dress, which she had been enlarging so as to make it fit Lizzie's plump figure.
The girl looked at it with disgust. "I don't call this a fine dress," she said; "and it isn't the sort—"
A ringing box of the ears cut short this speech. "Take that," said the woman, as she sent the girl reeling across the room from the blow. "If your mother had given you a few tastes of this sort of thing, I shouldn't be bothered with you."
Lizzie checked the tears that rose to her eyes, and was about to say she need not be bothered with her, she would go home again, but a look at the woman's face convinced her that it would be more prudent to hold her tongue about this; and so she resolutely kept silent, and was careful to stand still while the woman finished the work of fitting on the dirty-fine frock.
When the race-course was reached, everybody set to work to help get the shows set up, and the steam roundabout set going, and as soon as the wax figures were dusted and set in their places, Lizzie was dressed in the pink frock, and received her first lesson in the duties of her new office.
Mrs. Stanley went round the show with a cane in her hand, with which she pointed at the different figures ranged along each side, making Lizzie repeat each sentence after her.