It was quite dark, save for the flickering light thrown upon the ceiling from the gas-lamp below. Katharine started up from her long sleep, hardly realizing where she was.
“All right, mother—I’m awake!” she answered sleepily.
As she listened to her mother’s departing footsteps, it all came back to her, and she felt faint again. She struggled to her feet in the gloom and groped about till she had found a match, and lit the gas and drew down the old brown shades of the window. The light hurt her eyes for a moment, and as she pressed her hands to them she felt that they were wet.
“I suppose I’ve been crying in my sleep!” she exclaimed aloud. “What a baby I am!”
She looked at herself in the mirror with some curiosity, before beginning to dress.
“I’m an object for men and angels to stare at!” she said, and tried to laugh at her dejected appearance. “However,” she added, “I suppose I must go. I’m Katharine Lauderdale—‘that nice girl who never has headaches and things’—so I have no excuse.”
She stopped for a moment, still looking at herself.
“But I’m not Katharine Lauderdale!” she said presently, whispering the words to herself. “I’m Katharine Ralston—if not, what am I? Ah, dear me!” she sighed. “I wonder how it will all end!”
At all events, Katharine Lauderdale, or Katharine Ralston, she was herself again, as she turned from the mirror and began to think of what she must wear at the Van De Waters’ dinner-party.