"It is nothing—only a headache, I—I have been lying down," she faltered, miserably.
The lady glanced at the white, unrumpled bed, and then at Irene, curiously.
"Where—upon the floor?" she inquired, with a mixture of sarcasm and amazement.
"I—believe so; I felt so bad I did not think," answered Irene, trying to smile.
"Poor dear," said the lady, full of womanly compassion; "if I had known you were so ill I would have come up to you long ago. It was too bad your lying here all by yourself in the dark! In your tight dress, too; I am ashamed of myself! But now I am going to undress you and 'put you in your little bed.'"
Heedless of Irene's gentle expostulations, she proceeded to follow the kind promptings of her womanly heart, and directly she had the girl dressed in her snowy robe de nuit and nestled among the pillows of the snowy bed.
"Now you may shut your eyes, and I will bathe your head with eau de cologne until you fall asleep," she said.
"But indeed it does not ache now. Pray do not trouble yourself," Irene expostulated, now thoroughly ashamed of her innocent little fib.
The lady sat down and began passing her hand tenderly over the pillow.
"I am glad it does not ache any longer," she said, unsuspiciously. "You were sadly missed from among us this evening, my dear," she continued in a light, bantering tone. "Mr. Revington was exceedingly distrait; Miss Smith teased him for a song, but he gave her such a doleful one that he received no encores whatever."