Katy was startled as she beheld her white face as she groped her way into the room. She sat so still that Dorothy imagined herself quite alone.
"I—I can not bear it!" she sobbed, flinging herself face downward on the carpet with a wretched little sob. "In everything she seems to come between me and my lover! Oh, I wish to Heaven that Iris Vincent would go away! Harry has not been the same to me since she has been beneath this roof. They tell me it is my imagination, but my heart tells me it is no idle fancy. She will be standing by my lover's side receiving my guests! Oh, angels up in Heaven, forgive me if the pangs of jealousy, cruel as death, spring up in my poor heart at that bitter thought!" And another thought: "Harry is beginning to depend so much upon her society. Now, if I ask, 'Where is Harry?' the answer is, 'Out driving or walking or singing with Iris.' Katy tells me she is very plain of face—nay, even homely. If she were beautiful I should be in terror too horrible for words. It is wicked of me, but, oh! I can not help but thank God she is not fair of face, to attract my darling from me."
Tears rolled down Katy's cheeks as she listened. Not for the world would she have let her poor young mistress know that her grief had had a witness. She kept perfectly quiet, making no sound, scarcely breathing, until Dorothy passed slowly into an inner apartment, and she was heartily glad that she touched her bell a moment after.
Katy hurried to her with alacrity, taking pains, however, to tiptoe to the door, open it, and close it again, quite as if she had just come in from the corridor.
"Now, Katy," said her young mistress, "you must make haste to help me dress. I am impatient. I feel dreadfully nervous, as though a great calamity was to take place. I feel just such a strange sensation as seemed to clutch at my heart before that terrible accident happened that has blighted my whole life."
"Oh, dear Miss Dorothy, please don't talk so!" cried Katy, aghast. "I'm sure it isn't right, if I may make so bold as to say so to you. I have always heard it said: 'Never cross a bridge of trouble until you come to it.'"
"'Coming events cast their shadows before,'" quoted Dorothy, slowly.
"I have made your dress look so lovely, Miss Dorothy," she cried, bravely attempting to turn her thoughts into another channel, "and it's right sorry I am that you can't see it. Every one will say that it is the prettiest dress at the ball. You said I might fix it any way that I liked, so long as it looked grand."
"How have you arranged it, Katy?" asked Dorothy, with a faint smile, being girl enough to forget her sorrow for an instant in speaking of her ball dress.
"It is your new white tulle, miss, that I picked out—the one that you had made to go to parties in, providing you were ever asked to any, the first week you came to Gray Gables, you remember."