And Lily, repenting of her resentment when she saw how dull and miserable Gracie seemed, threw her arms about her neck as they were leaving school, and said, "Please forgive me my provokingness this morning, Gracie. I ought to be ashamed, and I am."
But Gracie could not return, scarcely suffer, the caress, and dared not trust herself to speak, as she thought how furious Lily's indignation would be if she but knew the truth.
X.
A GAME OF CHARACTERS.
AT home or at school, studying, working or playing—for the latter she had little heart now—Gracie could not shake off the weight that was upon her mind and spirits. Even her work for the fair had lost its interest; and as for the mat, Nellie's mat, she could not bear the sight of it. She went to sleep at night thinking of it, and trying to contrive some way out of her difficulty, though she would not listen to the voice of her conscience which whispered that there was but one way; and she woke in the morning with the feeling that something dreadful had happened. Appetite and spirits failed; she grew fretful and irritable, and her mother imagined that she must be ill, though Gracie resolutely persisted that there was nothing the matter with her, and that she felt quite well.