"I will forswear powder henceforth," she said, as she looked at herself in the glass. "Lady Betty says truly, powder must go with paint. I will have neither."
So the long, abundant tresses were left to their own sweet will, their lustre dimmed by the remains of the powder at the top, but the under tresses were falling in all their rippling beauty over her shoulders.
Amelia Graves brought her a cup of chocolate and some finger-biscuits, saying:
"Her ladyship has already had two breakfasts, and after the last has gone off to sleep again."
"I hope she will remember she promised to go to Mr. Herschel's musical reunion," Griselda said. "If not, Graves, I must go alone; I must indeed. You will send the boy Zack for a chair, won't you?"
"More of the gay world! Ah, my dear, I do pity you."
"Gay world! Well, I know nothing that lifts one above it as music does. I am no longer the pleasure-seeker then?"
Graves shook her head, and, getting a long wrapper, she covered Griselda with it, and began to comb and brush the hair which nearly touched the floor as it hung over the back of the chair.
"Come, I will gather the hair up for you. Well, it's a natural gift coming from God, and the Word says long hair is a glory to a woman, or I'd say it ought to be cut close. It is like your poor mother's, poor lady!" It was very seldom that Graves or anyone else referred to the sister of Mr. Longueville, who had disgraced herself by a mésalliance. "Poor thing!—ah, poor thing! it all came of her love of the world and the lust of the flesh."
Griselda's proud nature always felt a pain like a sword-thrust when her dead mother was spoken of.